


In Which Alex Learns to Give a Hoot About the Environment

by OlyaNeverWrites



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz, Hoot (2006), Hoot - Carl Hiaasen
Genre: Alex makes friends!, Canon-Typical Violence, Crack with a side of crack, Crossover, FYI this is based on the book version of Hoot but the only existing tag was for the movie, Gen, I suppose a mission managed to sneak in there as well, M/M, Not everybody is trying to kill him for once!, Rated teen for fruity language, canon melodramatic speeches, just some people, light mockery of our favorite enigmatic Russian assassin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 41,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28435812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OlyaNeverWrites/pseuds/OlyaNeverWrites
Summary: In the crossover that absolutely no-one asked for, Alex Rider finds himself on a mission in Florida with nothing to do. Of course, an idle Alex is the Devil’s spawn (I’m pretty sure that’s how it goes) and he eventually meets the kids from Carl Hiaasen’sHoot, Floridians with enough chaotic energy to rival his own. ReadingHootis not necessary to understand this but it is recommended, because it’s a really good book.
Relationships: Roy Eberhardt/Mullet Fingers
Comments: 21
Kudos: 25





	1. The Stowaway

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing anything creative, ever, besides a haiku about my snow boots. When I created this account I was not planning on writing so much as a single bawdy limerick (hence the username) but then I had a weird dream that morphed into this idea. Updates will come as I edit (this is mostly written) and get HTML to work the way I want it to. I used Grammarly to help me, but even robots make mistakes.

“Who,” said the backpack.  


Iona Loughlin, customs agent, a few coffees short of true consciousness, looked at the boy standing before her in bleary confusion. “Sorry, didn’t quite catch that.”  


The teenager shifting awkwardly at her window—all floppy blonde hair and large brown eyes and now wearing a bemused expression that made him look like a confused puppy—smiled politely. “Oh, I didn’t say anything. Must have been someone else.”

Who that someone else was was a mystery to the customs agent, as the young man in front of her—one Alec Rhiner, according to the passport in her hand—was one of only four passengers in express passport control. The other three were a family clustered together on the far side of the room in front of her colleague who, she was annoyed to see, looked much more alert than she did, despite also being at the tail end of a nine-hour night shift. Maybe it was the juice cleanse she started on Thursday. Her girlfriend had cajoled her into it and had only thought to reveal (to Iona's consternation) that coffee was not, in fact, a part of the “body purification plan” after she'd thrown it all out.  


_Damn you, Julie, and your obsession with my blood pressure. And it’s only Sunday_ , she thought gloomily. She was torn from her morose reverie by Alec, who cleared his throat politely. He was fidgeting, rocking back and forth on his heels. The air conditioning was on full blast; the boy had just arrived from Miami, he was probably freezing.  


“Is there anything the matter?” he asked.  


_Besides the fact that I’m up working at this godforsaken hour and might be entering the new and exciting world of auditory hallucinations?_ Iona thought to herself, and immediately felt a little guilty for keeping the boy waiting for so long; a transatlantic flight of over eight hours was punishment enough, and he’d had to sit through it alone. He probably wanted nothing more than to get home, no doubt to an eager family and a soft bed, and she was delaying that. “No, not at all, just a slow system, you know,” she replied, hastily handing back the passport. Alec smiled gratefully and tucked it carefully in his jacket pocket. He turned away and began to stride purposefully towards the door.  


Just as the boy was passing through the sliding doors, she heard it again. A faint, plaintive “Who.” _I’ve got to get some sleep_ , she thought. _And several cappuccinos_.

———

Alex Rider breathed a low sigh of relief as the sliding doors closed behind him. Good thing it was four in the morning, relatively uncrowded, and he’d gotten a sleepy passport control agent to boot. Lucky too that he managed to make the nonstop flight to London. He doubted MI6 would have sprung for more than seventeen pounds on RyanAir had he been stuck on the next available flight out of Miami, which would have landed him in Dublin. Even with his considerable experience in smuggling cargo (including himself), he doubted he could have gotten his unusual baggage past their luggage check. Maybe the powers that be had taken the part of the budget airlines usually allotted to the aviation lessons that covered smooth landings and rerouted it to nurturing the uncanny ability of the baggage checkers to detect so much as a single cubic centimeter over carry-on capacity, Alex mused. It was the sort of skill that might come in handy detecting bugs or hidden compartments. Perhaps they were a front for some sort of intelligence work. It would certainly explain the service.  


RyanAir would remain a mystery for now, Alex decided, though he made a mental note to add it to his file of “Potentially Dangerous Things to Investigate When I Get Bored” once he had access to his laptop. For now, he had to control his rambling thoughts and refocus on the current mission.  


“You’re doing great,” he muttered under his breath, giving his backpack a gentle, reassuring pat. “We’re almost there anyway.”  


The hard part was over. He'd survived the eight-plus-hour flight without too many suspicious looks, and a taxi ride through London would be a cinch. London cabbies were much less particular about their clientele than most airlines and likely were used to a much odder variety of passengers than a young boy with unusually vociferous luggage. He walked into the misty London morning and hailed a cab.

———

As expected, the cabbie did not seem particularly interested in why Alex’s backpack was talking and chattered happily about the latest football matches and the prospects of the Egyptian national team, the selection pool of which, he proudly told Alex, his nephew was a member. Alex nodded politely, stifling a yawn. He had not dared to sleep on his flight, and now he could feel his eyelids drooping. The cabbie dropped Alex off in front of his home in Chelsea, and after a cheery wave, sped off, leaving Alex to slip inside. This would be the other tricky part. Getting past Jack.  


Alex had deliberately not warned her that he was coming home and counted on her passionate commitment to not rising before the sun was well and truly up to give him a few precious minutes undetected. He unlocked the door and tiptoed into the house. All was quiet, and, judging by the fresh-looking takeout containers sitting in the trashcan, nothing was amiss unless Jack had somehow managed to get quietly kidnapped within the past six hours. He doubted it. That was more of a “typical Alex” thing to happen.  


_Stealth mode, stealth mode_. Creeping slowly up the stairs, Alex was seized by a mad urge to start humming _The Pirates of Penzance_ , restraining himself through a valiant effort. Alex spared a quick glance through Jack’s half-open door—sure enough, there she was, sprawled on the bed and snoring quietly—and slipped into his bedroom. He closed the door with a quiet click, set his backpack down gently on his desk. Breathed again. And slowly, slowly unzipped the main compartment. A pair of large, yellow eyes stared out at him.  


“Who.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RyanAir is a budget airline based in Ireland that is notorious for its... variable quality of service. My main inspiration for the commentary on RyanAir was YouTube completions like [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgMgENqGxkM), [this amazing song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X89NOR88gh4), and my own experiences.
> 
> The _Pirates of Penzance_ is a Victorian-era comedic operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan, and the song Alex is thinking of is [_With Catlike Tread_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1dJxH0zLWY), sung by the titular pirates as they try to sneak into Major General Stanley's home without waking him.
> 
> NOTE the first two links contain some NSFW language.


	2. Él Que No Iba A Salir

**_TWO WEEKS EARLIER_ **

“I won’t.”

“You absolutely will.”

“I refuse.”

“You can’t.”

“No!”

“It’s different this time.”

“It’S diFfErEnT tHiS tiMe.”  


“It is!”  


“Bullshit.”  


“There will be consequences if you don’t.”  


“There will also be consequences if I get shot in the face!”  


“You won’t get shot in the face.”  


“YoU wOn’T gEt ShOt iN tHe fAcE.”  


“That’s enough, Alex!”  


“That’s enough, Alex!”  


“I agree to go on this very safe, very easy mission with my good friend Joe Byrne and the CIA.”  


“Excellent, that’s me off the hook then, yeah?”  


“ALEX.”  


“What?”  


“We can still deport Jack, you know.”  


“I can still join the SVR, you know. They seemed pretty keen on having me, and _they_ let me drink vodka with a bear!”  


“We can have you expelled from Brooklands.”  


“You twats have basically done that already!”  


“We can do the same to Mr. Harris and ensure that he is not accepted by any other secondary school in the country.”  


Alex paused. That was a new one. Tom would probably be a bit less devastated than MI6’s Deputy Director of Operations supposed, but Alex would prefer to consult with Tom first before he allowed his best friend to be forced out of the country in the name of higher education. Jones seemed encouraged by his silence and pressed on. “How many times have we been down this road before, Alex?”  


“Not enough for it to stick!”  


Not enough for Jones or those bastards at the CIA to get tired of dealing with him either, apparently, because after two hours of wheedling, bribes, and eventually undisguised threats, Alex found himself being shipped off to America anyway.  


It wasn’t so bad, in some ways. It had been a surprisingly uneventful mission thus far. Alex had been sent to southern Florida to act as a cover for some CIA agents—because that worked SO well before—investigating some narco trafficker in Miami. Privately, he’d wondered how they figured his presence would aid what seemed to be a pretty well-publicized DEA investigation with minor CIA support. He was beginning to suspect Joe Byrne might have wanted to send him on an actual holiday to make up for the disastrous Sarov incident. Well, disastrous for the two CIA agents ( _impaled with extreme prejudice_ , was how Alex had described their demise in his report), Sarov, and Alex’s mental health, but all-in-all a win for the world. Maybe Byrne was trying to butter him up for the next, more dangerous time the CIA came calling.  


Whatever the motivation, it had become obvious to Alex pretty quickly that he was of little use to the ongoing investigation. And after two days, he was beginning to get bored. He was kept in a motel that could be best described as “inoffensively taupe” and hadn’t been allowed to explore any part of Miami that he would actually have wanted to visit.  


Downtown Miami and the beaches were too close to Ramos’s usual haunts for the CIA’s liking. Little Havana had been ruled out immediately, even though Ramos wasn’t even Cuban (something Alex had pointed out several times, to nobody’s amusement.) The cartel wasn’t picky about nationality, one agent had told Alex curtly, and the risk wasn’t worth it if they wanted to use Alex for any undercover work.  


The surrounding neighborhood had been declared off-limits after the first morning when Alex had somehow found himself in a pickup basketball game with one of Miami’s more vicious gangs. They didn't seem to mind Alex’s presence, and his Englishness and European Spanish accent were a source of fascination rather than suspicion. Alex had even checked to make sure they had no association with Ramos (they didn't), and he felt the situation was reasonably low-risk. The panicked DEA agent who found Alex half an hour later, heckling a member of the opposition who was taking a free-throw, hadn’t seen it that way, and Alex had been shuffled off, dragged in front of Liu, the surly DEA liaison, and Benegas, his irritatingly smug CIA counterpart, and told in no uncertain terms that he would not leave the motel perimeter unless accompanied by one of their agents.  


The motel itself, apart from being eye-wateringly bland, was also uncomfortably hot and, due to Miami’s daily afternoon thunderstorms, constantly humid. Alex had been begrudgingly given a small radius where he was allowed to go on supervised early-morning runs, and then only after he threatened to dismantle the motel’s cheap bed frames to make himself a makeshift gym on the roof. He’d managed a rickety pull-up bar before they’d given in. The streets he’d been allowed to run on were uniformly cracked, sun-baked, and overgrown with weeds. He couldn’t even see Biscayne Bay, though he could feel the heavy humidity rolling in from the water and clinging to his already sweat-soaked t-shirt within seconds of stepping outside the motel door.  


When Alex was back in the motel—which was most of the day, as his body and the CIA’s patience only allowed him to run for so long—he experienced the delightful mix of near-constant supervision and uncomfortable exclusion. Whenever Alex entered a room, he got the all-too-familiar sense that his presence was jarring to the older, trained adults, many of whom had more experience in intelligence and law enforcement than Alex had years of life.  


It seemed especially disconcerting to the DEA agents, stemming in part (he was sure) from the usual inter-agency rivalry that led to a natural suspicion of the CIA and any foreign consultant that they brought in, and partly because they were unused to a child’s presence. Alex knew that rumors about him had been making the rounds for a while (really, MI6 and the others were lucky that they’d thrown him in with bad guys who either had ineffective connections to law enforcement or who ignored everything they were told about a teenage secret agent called Alex or some variation thereof from England). Maybe child agents were more prevalent, or accepted, at the CIA than the DEA. Or maybe, the CIA was more mercenary than he thought. They did have a habit of propping up genocidal leaders if they served their short-term interests; forcing a kid to work for them was far from the worst moral compromise they might be expected to make.  


One DEA agent, Santiago Lobos, seemed faintly disturbed by Alex’s presence like the rest of his colleagues but at least made an effort to talk to him. He looked younger than most of the agents, in his mid-to-late twenties with dark hair and eyes that Alex noticed tended to crease around the edges when he was trying not to laugh. This seemed to happen most frequently when a CIA agent said something so conspicuously up himself that Alex suspected it was deliberate.  


Lobos was the one who finally took pity on Alex after he found the teenager engaged in his latest attempt to pass the time, which involved throwing a pen at a wall. He wasn’t allowed in any of the motel rooms for “security reasons” (these security measures also seemed to involve bolting down the remaining furniture), so Alex had settled as far down the narrow hallway from the nearest CIA agents as he could possibly get. The smattering of streaky black dots currently made the shape of half a hand with an upraised middle finger. The ring finger was a bit wrinkly where the sickly green wallpaper had started to droop in the humidity.  


Lobos stood beside Alex’s supine form and contemplated the image. “Nítido.”  


Alex looked at him inquiringly. One of the upsides of talking with Lobos was the crash course on Puerto Rican slang and a primer on the Spanish-speaking Caribbean’s more common accents. This word he hadn’t heard yet, though.  


“Cool,” Lobos supplied, nodding at the defiled wallpaper.  


“Ah. Thanks.” Alex didn’t have much more to say to that. He twirled the pen idly in his hand and tossed it once more. An additional dot appeared on the rising knuckle.  


“Correct me if I’m wrong, kid, but I’m sensing that you’re bored,” Lobos said, catching the pen neatly as it bounced off the wall again.  


Alex allowed his arm to flop back down to the tiled floor, letting his head loll to face the agent. “Not sure what gave you that idea, mate. You’ve just interrupted the next big thing in pointillism. Shitty wallpaper and runny ink are criminally underused media. It’s a pity I’m wasting all this creative genius on you philistines.”  


Lobos laughed. “Fair enough. I’m more of a stick-figure man myself. Though I admire the direction this piece seemed to be taking.” He nodded his head towards the half-finished fist. “Thought of a title yet?”  


“I’ve got a few in mind. ‘Ode to MI6’ is a front-runner.”  


“Hmm. A bit on-the-nose, don’t you think?”  


“Or YNHLQMDLGPEMMI6YLPCIA.”  


“Yo no hago lo que me da la gana..?”  


“…por el maldito MI6 y la puta CIA. When in Rome, right?”  


Lobos winced. Maybe making Alex listen to a four-hour raeggetón mix earlier that morning had been a mistake. In his defense, that was what _he_ had been listening to and the boy had chosen to stay and endure, probably because Lobos hadn’t treated him like a juvenile bundle of TNT. At least Alex now possessed a healthier appreciation of Daddy Yankee's and Wisin & Yandel’s contributions to the genre. “Uy. Yeah. Where are we in there?”  


Alex sighed and stared back at the ceiling. “I was going to add you, but when the investigation leader guy—Liu?” Lobos nodded. “When Liu met me at the plane, he looked like he was about to have an MI when he saw me get off. Even asked me to my face how old I was while the CIA liaison was trying to shut him up. I thought he was going to shit himself. That, and the way the rest of you”—Alex waved his hand in the air vaguely—“act whenever I walk in a room makes me think that Byrne and my lot just sprung me on you. Or that I have rabies and you're all just trying to figure out how to tell me nicely.”  


Lobos gave a half-shrug. “You aren’t wrong. About the springing, not about the rabies bit. It’s not that we don’t want you here or anything, it’s just…”  


“A wildly unethical PR disaster waiting to happen?” Alex finished helpfully.  


“And the job of literally thousands of trained adults. Plus, all this undercover crap that the spooks are trying to pull… We don’t really do that sort of thing. It’s too risky, and we learned that lesson the hard way back in the 80s. CI’s are as close as we like to get.”  


“Huh,” Alex spoke to the ceiling. “I would’ve thought that you’d be a bit nicer about your intelligence pals.”  


“Inter-agency rivalry is a beautiful thing. Plus, they are historical assholes. A lot of the shit they’ve done in Latin America is why my job is so hard today. No foresight whatsoever.” Lobos shook his head ruefully.  


“No love lost between you, it seems.”  


“None whatsoever,” Lobos agreed. “I don’t know if the spooks”—he threw a disparaging glance towards the CIA agents standing further down the hallway—“told you anything, but it looks like we probably won’t need you to do this after all. All we’ve got left is filling in a gap in the transport chain, and there isn’t much you can do about that.”  


“And they didn’t say a thing. Imagine that. But I don’t know, I do have some familiarity with trafficking on boats. Though it’s been a while since they were boats with drugs,” Alex added.  


“That sounds like a highly-classified story for another day.”  


“Highly-classified is one way to put it.”  


“Hey, this means you can chalk this one up as some nice fluff to pad your CV.”  


“Yeah, it'll be totally worth it if the neuronal atrophy from staring at this stupid wall doesn’t shave too many years off of my cognitive lifespan.”  


“Which leads me to my next point.”  


“Please don’t tell me you brought Sudoku.”  


“No, I like crosswords better anyway. And that’s not what I meant. Why don’t you go get some fresh air, do something fun instead? Lots of stuff for kids your age to do in Florida.”  


Alex raised an eyebrow at this. “I think I’m a little past spinning teacups and brunch with Mickey Mouse, thanks.”  


Lobos snorted. “Yeah, I wasn’t suggesting you spend a week and a half in that sweaty cesspool of disease. I mean get out of Miami. See some beaches, check out the nightlife. Everglades and Big Cypress, if that’s more your speed.”  


“They’d seriously be okay with that.”  


“Sí señor. I already checked. They said 'better than that kid setting something on fire.'”  


“That was one time!” Alex protested.  


Lobos raised his eyebrows. He was definitely too expressive to do any sort of undercover work. “I think that was purely theoretical nene, but I will be keeping you away from the matches from now on.”  


Alex glared, but he couldn’t hold the expression for long. Lobos’s twitching mouth undermined any chance of taking his previous _grossly unfounded_ statement too seriously. “Don’t know how I’ll be able to part with this palace of luxury.”  


“It’ll be hard, but I think you’ll manage.”  


“So, you’re springing me. What next? Some armored car with a forty-year-old babysitter who wears a suit to the beach and makes sure I reapply my sunscreen every thirty minutes?”  


“If you decide to go, none of that. You’ll be in a Toyota Camry from 2002 with my sister, who won’t make you do anything.”  


That hadn’t sounded so bad to Alex, and in no time at all, he found himself speeding west with Santiago Lobos’s sister Maritza, a petite marine biologist who looked like a cross between a mischievous forest sprite and a Latina Indiana Jones on her way to the Gulf Coast to tag some manatees near Bonita Springs and didn’t mind some company. The air conditioning in the car didn’t work (“Not since 2014, mijo,” Maritza Lobos had said cheerfully) so they cracked the windows and Alex enjoyed the feel of the sun on his face and the warm breeze in his hair, grateful to have escaped the seedy monotony of the past two days in the motel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title "Él Que No Iba A Salir" ("He who was not going to leave") and "YNHLQMDLGPEMMI6YLPCIA" are references to "La Que No Iban A Salir" ("the ones that weren't going to come out") and YHLQMDLG (Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana, or "I do what I want") respectively, two albums published in 2020 by Puerto Rican musician Bad Bunny. Reggaetón is a (typically Spanish-language) tropical music genre that originated in Panama in the early 1990s and increased substantially in popularity and scope when it spread to Puerto Rico in the late 90s and early 2000s. Daddy Yankee and Wisin & Yandel are two of the pioneers of modern reggaetón, a genre that was brought into the mainstream by 2004's _Gasolina_ (Daddy Yankee) and 2017's _Despacito_ (on which Daddy Yankee features). In the 2020 Super Bowl (American Football), Bad Bunny and J Balvin, two of the leading artists in the genre, performed alongside main acts Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. Bad Bunny's most recent album, _El Último Tour del Mundo_ , reached number 1 on the Billboard 200 albums.


	3. Big Cypress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure, I've been to Florida once in my life and it was a visit to Disney World when I was eight. Descriptions are based on experiences of family and friends, Carl Hiaasen's other books, and my own research. Please let me know if I've gotten something wrong!

What Alex had seen of Florida he’d not precisely disliked, but there had been an artificiality to it. Miami was decidedly urban, the run-down neighborhood where the DEA and CIA had set up more cinderblock than organic matter, and the Keys warped beyond natural recognition by centuries of human habitation. He hadn’t expected that half an hour away from the city was nature more vivid and alien than anything he’d seen growing up in England.

Just over an hour after they’d left Miami, they pulled into a parking lot at the end of a long dirt and gravel road. The road and lot were hemmed in by tall, skinny evergreens and wide-leafed palms. Theirs was the only car there. For the first time that day, Alex felt a simmer of apprehension. Maritza seemed nice and normal enough. They had spent the car ride talking about music and her studies, and whenever they passed a littering motorist, she cursed them with enthusiasm. But Damian Cray had managed to fool millions of people, and sometimes eco-warrior meant eco-terrorist. Alex would know. Had he really agreed to go on an impromptu road trip with the sister of a DEA agent he’d met two days before? He knew he could be impulsive, but this had the makings of a wildly stupid decision. He got out of the car and watched Maritza warily as she approached the trunk. Alex tensed. He might need to run. Where would he go? She’d catch him in a car, and she knew the swamp far better than he did. He should have grabbed a map, or maybe a stick…

The trunk slammed closed, and Alex jumped. “Everything alright?” Maritza strolled around to Alex's side of the car. She held two oars, a set of disposable waterproof cameras, and a sinister-looking metal rod with a hook at the end. She eyed Alex's crouched position; it looked like he was about to spring out of the starting blocks for a 100-meter dash.  


“Ummm…” Maritza looked perplexed now. Then caught the direction of Alex’s tense gaze and her expression cleared. “Ah. Yes. Santi warned me you might be a little… asustadizo. Here.” She thrust the metal rod into Alex’s hand. “See this?” she pointed at the handle near the non-hooked end. “Unhook this and squeeze here.” Alex did. The evil-looking hook opened and shut. “This is for catching snakes, mijo. They’re pretty lazy, but where we’re going, better safe than sorry, ¿verdad? This way we can move them out of the way without anyone getting hurt.”  


That made sense to Alex, and he let out a small exhale and caught her eye, feeling guilty. When had he begun to examine every gesture of kindness for heavy strings or a window for murder? “Oh. Yeah. Smart.” He wasn’t feeling all that smart at the moment. Was frazzled an emotion?  


Maritza seemed to have guessed what Alex was thinking. “If a stranger drove me to las quimbambas, parked where no-one could see us and pulled out a weird metal stick, I’d want to cut and run too,” she said, with the same cheeriness that characterized her verbal abuse of the litterbug drivers.  


Alex’s smile loosened. “I know you aren’t trying to kill me.” He was pretty sure of that, anyway.  


“Glad to hear it!” Maritza didn’t look offended at all. She shoved one of the oars at Alex and began to bounce down a sandy path, gesturing for Alex to follow. She had a remarkably springy gait. “I may not want to, but some of the other animals out here might,” she went on, utterly unconcerned by Alex’s paranoia. “Can you remind me what kind of snakes we should look out for?”  


During the drive, Maritza told Alex a bit about the animals they might encounter in Big Cypress. He was surprised to find how much he remembered and the additional facts he was able to dredge up from his six-year-old self’s reptile obsession. “Eastern coral snake, red and black bands with thinner yellow ones between. Red touches yellow is bad, these ones produce a powerful neurotoxin. They usually like more open areas, and they’re pretty shy…” Alex’s discomfort was soon lost to the world of neurotoxins, cytotoxins, and coagulants.  


———

Big Cypress was as wild and dangerously beautiful as the Australian jungle (with the added bonus that nobody was trying to harvest Alex’s organs.) Skeletal white trees rose from murky green bogs like bony fingers. Gray-barked bald cypress trees with massive, moss-covered roots dominated other watery parts of the park. The drooping branches dripping with leaves and vines created gauzy veils that Alex had to duck under as he and Maritza paddled through the flooded forest. Long-legged white-feathered wading birds hovered above the swamp, eerie and ghostlike. Alex had never been someplace that felt so haunted and so vibrantly alive.  


Maritza turned out to be an excellent and enthusiastic guide. She and her brother (“How is Tito? If he wasn’t treating you right, we will have words.”) had grown up in Puerto Rico on the outskirts of El Yunque, a swath of tropical rainforest that stretched over Puerto Rico’s mountainous interior. The frequent visits to this magical verdant playground had been the beginning of her interest in animals. Her Ph.D. may have focused on marine biology, but Alex didn’t think he’d met anyone with such an extensive knowledge of animals and plants as Maritza.  


In the hours they spent tramping through the footpaths and forest, they covered only the tiniest fraction of the reserve. Though Alex never spotted one of Florida’s elusive panthers, he did see plenty of shaggy, chestnut-brown bears. The alligators lazily sunning themselves on both sides of the elevated boardwalk path did not inspire the same fear as Cain’s vicious crocodiles. Maritza said the rattlesnakes and cottonmouths were the bigger risks anyway. (“As long as you stay out of the water and don’t try to play with the logs.”) It was surprising how safe and peaceful he felt surrounded by animals that could kill him or would leave some nasty scars in the attempt. Even when Alex nearly stepped on a rattlesnake, eagle-eyed Maritza had noticed before he could come to any harm. She indicated for him to stop and then guided him through using the now innocent-looking snake hook to lift the reptile off of the path and into the bushes, where it gave an indignant rattle and slithered off to find a less highly-trafficked patch of sun.  


They stayed past dark and only left once the mosquitos were out in force. Both were hot and sweaty, their clothes reeking of swamp water (a friendly kayak race had quickly devolved into an all-out splash war), and their skin dotted with mosquito bites, but Alex felt it was over all too soon. It seemed like Maritza was almost as reluctant to leave as Alex was. As they drove to the house they’d be staying in for the week—technically for the use of the university’s marine biology research team but pretty flexible about guests—Maritza promised to take Alex to the Everglades the next week, provided he wasn’t called back to Miami. That sounded great to Alex.  


———

The next morning, they were awake at the crack of dawn—Maritza out of habit, and Alex due to jet lag. “I’ll be out on a boat for most of the day this week,” she said over breakfast. “There’s a satellite phone, but the reception can be spotty, you’d be better off finding the harbormaster and asking him to radio us if you need me. Will you be alright? Do you have cash? Here’s a list of the good take-out places, don’t go to any of those overpriced tourist traps. You have my number, nene?” Alex felt like he was being cared for by a dark-haired version of Jack armed with a vibrant arsenal of Spanish curses.  


“And check this place out when you get bored.” She wrote an address on a napkin and stuck it to the refrigerator with a bright purple magnet in the shape of a lobster. “It’s odd, but I think you might like it.”  


Once Maritza was sufficiently reassured that Alex would not try to purchase food from sub-par establishments, she was gone.  


Left to his own devices, Alex headed to the beach. It was bliss after days in the concrete and damp motel of Miami and the unrelenting heat of Big Cypress, and he happily spent the day moving between the clear, turquoise water and the powdery sand. He still wasn’t one hundred percent certain that nobody was actively trying to kill him, but no one had pulled out a flamethrower or man-eating pet yet. It was definitely a step up from his normal missions.  


It was also a valuable opportunity for him to practice establishing a cover and sticking to it without worrying that he’d get thrown into a tank filled with hungry piranhas if he slipped up. Alex’s chosen alias was Steve-o, a laid-back singer on tour with his Ska band from Darwin who was there to participate in a contest to discover “southern Florida’s next big reggae-adjacent band.” The band’s imaginary drummer Timmy and guitarist Gazza were scoping out the competition in Fort Myers, Alex regretfully informed several disappointed tourists who asked whether they would be performing live any time soon.

———

Several days and an impressive full-body sunburn later, Alex decided to follow up on Maritza’s mysterious address, still stuck to the fridge with the crustacean magnet. He wasn’t bored yet, but Steve-o’s Ska band had become something of a hit and he was getting an uncomfortable number of requests for the band’s upcoming tour dates.  


———

A bus took him to an unremarkable town called Coconut Cove, which was apparently the home of an owl preserve located on a vacant lot. Out of curiosity, Alex had looked it up the evening before. A few years back, the lot had been the future home of Mother Paula’s Pancake House, a moderately popular American chain restaurant. Before the company even had a chance to break ground, the lot had been beset by a series of audacious (and hilarious) vandalisms. The culprit? A thirteen-year-old runaway who had noticed owls living on the lot and, after contacting the town, the pancake company, and the developers to no avail, decided to take matters into his own hands. He had gained allies in his stepsister and a friend, though it seemed as though the mastermind and main perpetrator was the runaway. Alex had to admire him. It took a bold, slightly unhinged genius to dump alligators in port-o-potties as a scare tactic.  


Alex got off the bus a block away from his destination, a residential area with the same flat artificiality he’d noticed in the more urbanized parts of Florida. The houses and lots were uniform to the point of absurdity, as though some city planner had fallen asleep on the keyboard and doomed an entire neighborhood to 1.5 Floors Of Vaguely Tropical Charm On A 0.1 Acre Lot Complete With Decorative Palm Tree.  


The owl preserve was on a large corner lot, surrounded by a high chain-link fence that had seen better days. A fading sign announced that this was the home to _Athene cunicularia floridana_ , a shy bird that usually avoided the heat of the day and was best observed at dawn and dusk.  


Alex circled the lot, peering carefully through the fence. If there were birds around, they seemed to be avoiding the afternoon sun. He seemed to be the only person or animal stupid enough to be outside, except for the few brave anoles he noticed clinging to the palm trees.  


At least he’d brought a textbook. It was the summer holidays, but Alex’s latest strategy was to read ahead in his classes so that he would have less catching up to do when MI6 inevitably yanked him out of school for a “simple, totally safe” mission that would throw him into the path of some other billionaire megalomaniac with exotic and highly illegal pets. Though some of them might have been multimillionaires, he supposed. These world-ending types could get surprisingly creative with limited resources.  


Alex sat down in the shade of a drooping palm, cracked open his chemistry textbook, and began to read.  


A few hours into the enthralling world of acid-base reactions, Alex heard rustling. It seemed too large to belong to one of the diminutive owls described in his research, and when he looked up, he saw a young man with shaggy, sun-bleached hair and a deep tan crouching by the fence. He seemed to be holding a wriggling green plastic bag. A vague sense of familiarity pricked at the back of Alex’s mind. He closed his textbook and rose. The other boy looked up as Alex approached.  


“Crickets,” he said by way of explanation, nodding at the little bag. The boy looked wild and out-of-place in the middle of these cookie-cutter suburbs. Alex suddenly realized where he’d seen the boy before.  


“Are you the guy who let snakes loose when they were trying to make this a pancake house?”  


The boy responded with a grin of pure, feral delight. He stood up, turned heel, and took off sprinting down the street. Alex was frozen in surprise for a moment, then shook himself and tore after him. Within the first thirty seconds of the chase, it became apparent that running with a heavy backpack under the hot Florida sun was difficult, especially when the person being chased clearly knew the streets better than he did. Even unburdened by textbooks, Alex knew he’d have trouble catching up to the boy, who was showing no sign of fatigue or slowing down. Meanwhile, Alex’s lungs and thighs were starting to hurt. Suddenly, the boy gave a sharp turn and vaulted over the bushes into a private yard. As his tanned legs flew through the air, Alex saw that incredibly, the boy wore no shoes. The soles of his feet were blackened. It would take an incredibly determined person to run on the searing asphalt without shoes, and it looked like this maniac had made a habit of it.  


The blonde boy sprinted across the freshly-cut lime-green grass. Alex, still running, opened the map on his phone. If his guess was correct, the cut through the boy had taken would spit him out onto a curving road two streets away. He was probably banking on Alex’s unfamiliarity with the area to lose him there. With luck, Alex could intercept him, and Alex had nothing if not luck. He took a hard left. Sure enough, a minute later, the other boy jogged out of a small copse of tropical trees a half-block ahead. Alex’s footsteps were nearly silent, but clearly not quiet enough, as the other boy inclined his head in Alex’s direction before beginning to run full-tilt. Alex thought he could hear him laughing.  


Another minute or two later, and Alex was feeling fatigue set in. As they passed another vacant lot, the boy suddenly turned again, sprinting straight into the snarl of trees that dominated the land. Alex had to go much more slowly; the branches and bushes snarled on his hair and clothing and generally slowed him down. At the end of the lot was a fringe of poplars that opened onto a smooth, green golf course. Alex looked left and right. No sign of the running boy at all. He had no idea where he could have gone; the green was busy, and nobody appeared to have had their game interrupted by a barefooted hellion. Choosing a random direction, he kept to the trees and began to jog but gave up quickly. He had no way to know where the boy had gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _asustadizo_ in this context means skittish, jumpy, and nervous. (It can also mean scary.)
> 
>  _mijo_ is a contraction of mi hijo (literally "my son") that is used as a term of endearment or friendship in many Spanish-speaking regions.
> 
>  _verdad_ means correct, right.
> 
>  _las quimbambas_ means "in the back of beyond", so basically the equivalent of the boonies or the middle of nowhere. It is used in Puerto Rico and other parts of the Spanish-speaking world.
> 
>  _nene_ (for males) or _nena_ (for females) is a term of endearment used for family, friends, and sometimes strangers, particularly in Puerto Rico. It means something roughly equivalent to "sweetie" or "hon."


	4. The Molly Bell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mullet Fingers is a terrible name. Unfortunately, the only other option was Napoleon, a name the character canonically hates. Roy's ethnicity is never explicitly stated in the book, so I decided that he is Colombian because I want him to use a nickname that wouldn't make sense otherwise.

There was no reason for Alex to keep up the chase besides curiosity; it wasn’t like he had witnessed the boy dumping crickets that were laced with uranium. But still, he felt a pull towards the mysterious runner. It had been a long time since anybody had gotten the drop on Alex. Especially when that person looked half-feral and almost as young as Alex himself. These days very few people would be thrilled to be chased by Alex Rider, and this boy had looked positively jubilant.

Alex checked his watch; it was later than he had realized. He decided to make his way back to the bus stop; between the run and the blazing afternoon, he was exhausted and covered in sweat and so, so hot. The sun was brighter than it ever was in England, and there was not a single cloud in the sky to temper the glare of the harsh afternoon light. Alex took a swig of water. It was lukewarm from being bounced around his backpack for the past few hours, but it was better than nothing. 

Alex remembered his run as a blur of streets and turns. He was surprised when he realized how far he had gone. The walk back to East Oriole Street felt endless, and there were not nearly enough leafy, shade-giving trees for Alex’s liking. The rippling heat made the sidewalks and streets ahead of Alex look like a shiny black lake, and Alex found himself wishing for a body of water to flop into. 

By the time he made it back to the bus stop, he felt like he couldn’t walk another step. His feet were hot and tired, and the entire back of his shirt was soaked in sweat. He collapsed under a short, broad-leafed tree and waited.

It was only when he was sitting in the bus with its blessedly cool air-conditioning that Alex realized he hadn’t even seen the owls, which had been the purpose of the excursion in the first place.

———

That evening over dinner, Alex told Maritza about his expedition to Coconut Cove. When he got to the blonde boy, he hesitated a moment, worried that he might have disrupted some delicate balance in southwest Florida’s eco-protector-sphere, but decided to tell her anyway. Maritza had sent him to that lot specifically, and she almost certainly knew its colorful history. She might have known that such an encounter was a possibility. She could hardly blame Alex for being inquisitive.

“It sounds like you’ll have to go back again tomorrow, ¿sí?” Maritza said when Alex was finished. “You wouldn’t want to miss the owls.” Her face had an odd expression that Alex interpreted as poorly-concealed excitement or constipation. The former seemed more likely. Alex was almost certain that she knew more than she was letting on.

“And what about the guy I chased? What if he shows up again?” he pushed. “Should I be worried?” He’d overcome his fear that people were lurking in the sleepy beach town, lying in wait to kidnap or murder him when the opportunity presented itself. But given his past few years of experience, it was a question worth asking.

Maritza shrugged. “I wouldn’t be. He ran, didn’t he? That doesn’t sound like someone who’s about to attack you.” Maritza didn’t believe in beating around the bush when it came to Alex’s paranoia.

“I guess not,” he admitted, though this didn’t help him formulate his next steps. “But I want to talk to him. I think he knows something.”

“Something about…?”

Alex was stumped. He stared at his hands, where his fingernails were absently picking at the chipped paint on the table. “I don’t know. Just… something more. I don’t… I’m not sure what it is.”

When he glanced up again, Maritza was smiling at him, though it was gentler than her usually chipper, mischievous grin. “It sounds like you think he knew exactly where he was going. That means you do, too—or at least part of the way. You want to talk to him?” Alex gave a half-shrug. “Maybe this mysterious runner shows up again tomorrow. Maybe you chase him again. But maybe you’re a little more prepared this time.”

“So you’re saying I should,” Alex prompted.

“I’m not saying anything.” Alex groaned and shot her a half-hearted glare that came out more like a pained grimace. This must be what having siblings felt like.

Maritza laughed and gave his shoulder a light shove. “I think you’ve already made up your mind anyway,” she said. Alex gave a half-shrug in response. “Just remember more water tomorrow, nene. And maybe ditch the textbook.”

———

Alex took the bus to Coconut Cove at the same time the next day. Like before, he circled the lot on the off-chance that one of the little owls was out. And then he took a seat under the same drooping palm he’d taken shelter under the day before. Unlike yesterday, he hadn’t brought a heavy chemistry textbook. He sat patiently in the shade and practiced some meditation techniques instead, ones that Ben Daniels had taught him after a particularly stressful mission that ended with Alex so high on adrenaline he couldn’t sleep for two days. Alex kept an eyelid cracked open for signs of the other boy.

Sure enough, the blonde kid showed up around the same time as before, and once again, Alex pushed himself to his feet and slowly approached. The other boy twitched the moment Alex began to move but made no motion to run away. Instead, he stood with his head slightly tilted, a curious half-smile on his face.

“Lovely to see you again,” Alex said.

The other boy raised an eyebrow. He looked to be four or five years older than Alex and a bit taller, with a wiry build. His eyes were a startling blue, as bright as the Florida sky, which was once again cloudless. “I’m pretty sure you got an eyeful of my ass and not much else.”

Alex shrugged. “I’ve seen worse. But you ran off so quickly, I didn’t even get your name or hear about the alligators. I was pretty devastated.”

The other boy bounced on his heels for a moment. “My condolences. I don’t think today’s your lucky day, though. See ya.” He turned and darted away in the same direction as yesterday.

Alex was ready this time. As soon as the boy vaulted over the hedge again, Alex turned and ran in the other direction.

The night before, Alex had looked at the map of Coconut Cove, specifically along the route he and the other boy had taken in their heatstroke-imperiling foot-chase. They had taken a circuitous route to the golf course and based on Maritza’s conspicuous hints, Alex was betting that was where he was going now. The closest entrance was still through the wooded vacant lot, but the map had shown Alex a much shorter route. It was that path he jogged along now.

In a much shorter and less strenuous time than it had taken the afternoon previous, Alex reached the copse of trees. There was no sign of the boy, but even at the speed he’d been running the day before, it would take him a bit longer. On closer inspection, Alex saw a well-concealed path through the trees that avoided the worst of the brambles. He had been focusing entirely on the chase the day before and had overlooked it. This was what the blonde boy must have run through. 

Alex was certain he had arrived first today. Now he just needed to plan an ambush. With no real options to hide on the ground, Alex decided to climb up one of the sturdier trees. He could jump down easily while being partially concealed by leaves and the shorter plants if he stayed still. Very few people ever thought to look up, especially when it seemed like they had lost their pursuers.

Soon after Alex had ascended to his chosen perch, he heard the sound of soft footsteps through the underbrush. The other boy was walking now, his limbs loose and gait relaxed. Alex waited for him to pass under his hiding spot and dropped lightly to the ground. The other boy stopped but and turned around slowly as Alex straightened.

“Hiding in a tree. Sick!”

“Not enough people look up,” Alex acknowledged.

Surprisingly, there was no sign of anger or annoyance on the other boy’s face. On the contrary, he looked immensely pleased. “I’ll remember that.” His face split into a wide grin. “Great to have a friend who gives good advice.”

“Are we friends now?”

“Seems like it,” the blonde kid replied cheerfully.

“I’ve chased you twice now for miles, mate.”

The other boy waved his hand airily. “All the best ones do.”

“So you’ll talk to me.”

“Don’t see why not! Seems like you’ve earned it.”

Alex was nonplussed. Chases and interrogations didn’t tend to go this way in his experience.

“I mean, whenever you’re ready.” The other boy said after a long pause, nodding encouragingly. “You asked about the alligators?”

Alex cleared his throat. “Amongst other things. That was you?”

“Sure was!”

“You really dumped them in the toilets?”

“Well, they hadn’t been used yet! I would’ve never done it otherwise.”

“And you dumped cottonmouths in the lot?”

“Yep, all me! They’d put guard dogs in the lot, see, and the dogs would’ve hurt the owls. I didn’t want to hurt the dogs, so I made sure to dip the snakes’ tails in sparkles and tape their mouths shut and everything before I let ‘em loose. Their trainer wasn’t too happy about that.”

Alex laughed outright. He couldn’t help it. The other boy seemed so proud, and Alex could not think of a more fitting way to give some thoughtless company that did not give a second thought to bulldozing nature the middle finger. _Too bad England doesn’t have anything with a lot of teeth that’s been around since dinosaur times wandering around our back gardens_ , Alex thought. He might sic something on Blunt if he could get away with it. He would have to break into a zoo if he wanted to find something suitably intimidating.

“You aren’t from here,” the boy stated. “What’re you doing looking for some owls, anyway?”

“Yeah, I’m from London.” Alex gave a heavily sanitized rundown of the week prior. When he mentioned Maritza, the other boy seemed to recognize the name. 

“Dark curly hair, likes manatees, cusses like a sailor but in Spanish? She’s cool.” 

“She knows you.”

“Oh yeah! Been out here a few times. She helped me get some work, actually. Never thought that running around and telling people to respect animals could be a job.”

“I told her about you yesterday. She didn’t say anything. Just said that if I came back today, I should be better prepared.”

The boy laughed. “Classic. That’s how she met me too, you know. She had a vegetable oil-powered golf cart and she knew how to use it.”

“Isn’t that cheating a bit?

The boy waved his hand. “I’m hard to catch. I figured it was worth talking to her if she cared so much.” He paused, looking at Alex searchingly. “The owls won’t be out for a few hours. There’s a creek nearby, and a heron that likes me. We might see a gator. Wanna come?”

Alex stared at him. This had gone from a wild chase and arboreal ambush to a friendly nature walk pretty quickly. This kid was awfully trusting for someone who, if the implications in the old newspaper clippings were correct, had been living as an on-and-off fugitive for nearly a decade. Curiosity won out in the end. “Sure, why not.”

The boy nodded again. “Give me a sec, gotta call Roy.” He pulled out an ancient-looking flip-phone and dialed. “What should I call you?” he asked.

“Alex is fine. You?”

“Mullet Fingers?” Alex raised an eyebrow. He vaguely remembered reading in one news article that the boy’s name was Napoleon. Though he could understand the desire to distance himself from such a name, Mullet Fingers seemed significantly worse.

Mullet Fingers laughed at Alex’s expression. “You’ll see,” he said.

Alex rolled his eyes. “And Roy?”

“My parole officer.” He laughed at Alex’s expression. “Just messing with you, he’s my boyfriend.” Mullet Fingers turned away and spoke quietly into his phone in what sounded like Spanish. After a few moments, he hung up. His smile was still there but closer to the shy, self-conscious variation that accompanied talk of love and crushes and romance. Alex knew little about that first-hand; it seemed like an awful lot of emotional turmoil and vulnerability, and he already had enough of that thrust upon him without willingly self-inflicting this more embarrassing variety. 

“You look happy,” Alex observed.

“Roy,” Mullet Fingers said fondly. “He’s there already, and he says he saw an eastern indigo snake.” This meant nothing to Alex, but he followed anyway. They passed through the trees and skirted the golf course.

“Careful, Roy got beaned in the head with a golf ball once. Knocked him out cold.” 

“What was he doing on the golf course?”

“Chasing me.” 

“Why?” 

“Insatiable curiosity. Didn’t know him yet, so I ran, he got hit. Didn’t stop him, though.” 

“Seriously?” 

“What, is that not how you meet people normally?”

“Usually when people are chasing me, it’s cause they’re trying to kill me.”

“Oh man, I hate it when that happens.”

“People were trying to kill you? Why?”

“Greedy sacks of shit who think they can pollute the water or kill helpless animals or pull some other crap that destroys the environment and get away with it. They don’t like it when I show them they’re wrong. Why were people trying to kill you?”

Alex was surprised to find himself answering honestly. Mullet Fingers’ frank candor made it difficult not to, and he did not seem like the type of person to sell Alex’s secrets to the highest bidder. “Not too different. Bastards with more money than anyone should have decide they want to use it to destroy the world. Usually with some crazy genetically-engineered disease or nuclear apocalypse.”

“This has happened more than once?”

“Unfortunately. You’d be surprised how many billionaires do that instead of spending it on normal things like donating to medical research or buy an acre of rainforest.”

Mullet Fingers snorted. “These idiots are all the same. It’s always about them and their stupid ideas for how to make their own lives easier, screw everyone else. It’ll bite them in the ass if I have anything to say about it.”

Eventually, Alex and Mullet Fingers passed through a strand of trees on the far side of the golf course and into a sea of tall, jade-green and gold grass, waving gently in the languid breeze.

“Watch for snakes,” Mullet Fingers warned. “You’ll probably be fine if you get bit, but it’ll be a hassle to get you to the clinic. It hurts a ton.” Alex picked carefully through the grass and they made it through without incident. Their destination was a mangrove-edged creek. 

“Behold, the _Molly Bell_ ,” Mullet Fingers said, gesturing grandly. Through a large gap in the mangroves, Alex could see a half-sunken boat sitting in the crystal clear creek.

Lying flat on his stomach on the roof of the pilothouse was a dark-haired young man lying flat on his stomach. He was staring fixedly down the creek. When Alex and Mullet Fingers stepped closer to the gap, the other boy looked up and gave a half-wave. “Leave your bag,” Mullet Fingers instructed and, following the boy’s lead, Alex removed his socks and shoes. They waded into the creek, which was pleasantly cool.

The dark-haired boy—this could only be Roy—sat up. “Quiubo, Monito,” he said to Mullet Fingers. He reached down a deeply tanned arm, clasped Mullet Fingers’ hand, and lifted him up with one arm. He appeared to be the taller and broader of the two.

Once comfortably seated on the pilothouse roof, Mullet Fingers nudged Roy with his shoulder. “Scoot over for Alex.” Roy obliged. He helped Alex climb up a moment later.

“Hi, Alex, nice to meet you.” Roy reached his hand around Mullet Fingers and they shook. “I heard you jumped out of a tree to get my boyfriend to tell you about the alligators. Nice. How’s Maritza?” Roy asked.

“Good to meet you too. Yes, and for some reason that made him want to talk to me. Doing well, last I checked. When I left this morning she was having some choice words with a crab boat captain. Apparently, he’s been going too fast in a manatee zone.”

“Yeah, he likes that. Good old Maritza. I bet that captain crapped himself.”

Alex laughed. “His vocabulary has certainly grown. He’s probably bilingual by now.”

“You learned a lot, Roy, and your mom’s Colombian,” added Mullet Fingers.

“True, she’s like a dictionary.”

“What were you looking for?” Alex asked curiously, once the three had settled on the top of the boat.

Roy nodded to a small ripple in the creek. “That.”

“Watch,” added Mullet Fingers. He dangled over the side of the boat, arms drifting perilously close to the barnacle-encrusted exterior. As the small ripple approached, Alex could see hundreds—maybe thousands—of darting silver fish. They wavered beneath the sun, the layer of water causing some to distort like they were reflected in a funhouse mirror. They passed into the boat’s shadow and—quicker than anyone Alex had seen, which, given his years of being bounced around the world on missions against adversaries with abilities so stunning they were almost cartoonish, said a lot—Mullet Fingers plunged his hand into the writhing, shimmering mass, removing it a moment later with his fist clenched. Carefully, he opened his hand. Alex leaned closer. There, sitting in the middle of Mullet Fingers’ cupped palm, swam one of the tiny silver fish.

“Mullet,” added Roy unnecessarily.

Alex reached out one tentative finger to touch the little fish. It was slippery and swift, flashing like quicksilver in Mullet Fingers’ calloused hands.

“How the hell did you manage that?” he asked a moment later, once Mullet Fingers had released it back into the creek. 

“Practice,” said Roy and Mullet Fingers in unison before turning to each other and laughing.

“It took me six months to get it down,” added Roy. “The first time I tried it on my own, I thought it must have been a trick. Then he”—he jerked his head towards Mullet Fingers—“filled my sneakers with fish, just to prove it wasn’t. Not sure how he managed that without me seeing him.”

Alex sat up, dangling his bare feet over the edge into the water. “So this is what you do all day in Florida? Run around feeding crickets to owls and trying catch fish with your bare hands?”

Roy and Mullet Fingers exchanged an amused glance.

“This isn’t exactly the typical lifestyle,” said Roy. “Most people don’t give a crap about all this, or at least not enough to do anything when some company with a bulldozer comes knocking with a handful of cash.” His voice was matter-of-fact without a hint of bitterness. “We do what we can.”

“Like setting alligators and snakes loose on developers?” Alex ventured.

Both boys laughed. “We try to opt for the more legal routes first, now,” said Roy.

“But if they ignore us, we sic half of Big Cypress on ‘em,” interjected Mullet Fingers. “Remember the bears?” he said dreamily, staring off into the mangrove leaves.

“My boss is a bit of a shit, I wouldn’t say no to sticking some crocs in his toilet if I could get away with it,” said Alex. “Kinda hard to get ahold of one of those in England, though.”

“But you have your own, don’t you?” said Roy.

“Badgers,” suggested Mullet Fingers.

“Didn’t they stick a newt in the evil principal’s drink in Matilda?” added Roy. “That’s a possibility.”

“No snakes, though.”

“That’s Ireland.”

“We have adders,” said Alex.

Mullet Fingers’ face lit up. “That’s an idea! But does he have a gun? Wouldn’t want the snake to get hurt.”

Alex laughed, and the three of them bounced around some more ideas for turning England’s wildlife against MI6’s ex- and current Directors of Operations. This segued into Mullet Fingers and Roy recounting more of their years-long crusade to protect Florida’s fast-disappearing wilderness, including several animal-assisted escapades of dubious legality but stunning effectiveness. Alex wished he’d brought something to take notes. 

One of the stories that Alex had been most curious about was how they met. They obligingly recounted it (frequently interrupting each other with objections or details of dubious relevance to the tale).

When Mullet Fingers was eleven years old, his single mother Lonna, who had never understood her adventurous son and put no effort into trying to do so, had met a retired professional basketball player named Leon Leep. After a whirlwind romance, Mullet Fingers had found himself standing in a stuffy church wearing a suit that made his skin itch and meeting his soon-to-be stepfather for the first time. The only bright spot of the whole situation was meeting his stepsister, Beatrice. They had taken to each other immediately. Beatrice’s parents had divorced two years before, and she chose to stay with her father as she had little faith in his ability to survive on his own. Though she was skeptical about her new stepmother, she hoped that the addition of Lonna to the family meant that when the time came for her to leave the house, she could do so without worrying that her father would simply forget to feed himself. Wariness quickly morphed into dislike when she saw how dismissively Lonna treated her son (“I did run away right after the ceremony, to be fair”) and thus began the years-long saga of chaos and animosity between Lonna Leep and her son and stepdaughter. Lonna’s main concern seemed to be that her son’s odd behavior would drive her husband away; on the contrary, Leon paid little notice to Mullet Fingers, and though he understood the boy about as well as his wife did, it didn’t bother him all that much.

Leon Leep’s indifference did little to reassure his new wife, and she became more fanatical in her attempts to “normalize the boy.” The last straw for both occurred when Mullet Fingers rescued a baby raccoon and brought it home, where it immediately relieved itself in Leon’s slippers. This led to a furious Lonna forcibly shipping her son to a military prep school without informing her husband. Within two weeks, the boy had run away, and after he had run away from his sixth or seventh reform school, Lonna had given up. Leon didn’t even notice when the bills from the school stopped coming.

Shortly after Mullet Fingers’ last and most permanent escape attempt, Roy had moved to Coconut Cove. He first noticed Mullet Fingers on the way to school, running faster than anyone he had ever seen despite Florida’s shimmering heat, and he was barefoot. That was what had drawn Roy to him, and that (along with the middle school bully attempting to strangle him shortly thereafter) had driven him from the bus to run after Mullet Fingers. It hadn’t been easy; the first attempt to chase the mysterious barefoot boy down had also been how he got hit in the head with the golf ball (Mullet Fingers cackled while Alex winced). Beatrice also caught on quickly and did her best to block any of Roy’s attempts to track down her wayward stepbrother.

Eventually, Roy’s persistence paid off. When Mullet Fingers was bitten by guard dogs at the pancake lot, and the bites became infected, Roy was who Beatrice turned to for help. Quick thinking on Beatrice’s part (and terrible lying on Roy’s) allowed him to be seen and treated with the antibiotics he desperately needed. Alex noticed Roy’s hand trace absently over a series of silver scars on Mullet Fingers’ arm when they reached that part of the story; those must be the dog bites. They looked vicious. 

A tentative trust was built, and when Roy helped the step-siblings save the little owls, the friendship was solidified. Years and countless hijinks later, in a development that was surprising to absolutely nobody besides the two boys, the friendship evolved into something more.

After a short but spirited debate about which one of the two realized the depth of their feelings first and plucked up the courage to do something about it, the conversation turned to the boys’ latest environmental predicament. Roy and Mullet Fingers suspected several party yachts of dumping waste into the delicate ecosystem of the Everglades. They had gotten a tip-off from a nervous deckhand, who quit shortly thereafter. Though they had spied the boats several times, they had no concrete evidence nor a solid plan for how to stop them from further poisoning the sea and land.

Alex considered himself to be an eco-friendly kind of guy when he thought about it (which, admittedly, was not often.) He recycled when he could and never littered unless it was a matter of life or death, which it sometimes could be. He was therefore surprised that the boys’ fiery passion and righteous anger at these injustices was rubbing off on him. Maybe he did not have a mission in Miami (or perhaps he did) but sod that. Here was a problem that did not have the support of two government agencies and millions of dollars. He could help. He was sure of it. If only the two boys would accept it.

The sun was beginning to descend and the shadows were long when the boys made their way back to shore amidst the rising tide. As they tramped back through the underbrush, Mullet Fingers said, “Still want to see the owls, yeah?”

Alex nodded; he had almost forgotten again. They carried on through the now-familiar route. The journey back to the lot on East Oriole felt quicker, and when the trio reached the chain-link fence, they saw that they were not the only guests. A mother with her small son and daughter, a college-age girl with a sketchbook and small camera, and an elderly couple all stood patiently by the fence. A patrol car was parked at the curb, and its relaxed-looking police officer waved at Roy and Mullet Fingers from his seat on the hood.

Roy pointed through the thickening twilight, “look,” he breathed. Alex looked as the little girl gave a small gasp of delight. There, poking its head out of a hidden hole in the ground, was the smallest owl Alex had ever seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _monito_ is the diminutive form of _mono_ , which means "monkey" in Spanish. In Colombian Spanish, it can also be used to describe someone as "blonde" or "cute." In this case, Roy means all three things.


	5. Ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I'm writing about a place I've never been to purely based on anecdotal evidence, Internet research, and books I've read. Apologies for any inaccuracies!

The little owl rotated its head side to side, taking note of its audience. Deeming their presence acceptably non-threatening, it hopped out some more and began industriously searching the ground for bugs. A sudden flurry of feathery movement out of the corner of Alex’s eye resolved into another owl chewing contentedly on a bright green grasshopper. Alex turned back to Mullet Fingers with an astonished grin. He had slung his arm around Roy’s shoulders, and both were smiling.

“They’re so small,” breathed Alex. Their bodies could not be larger than a can of Coke. “Are they babies?”

“Nope,” responded Mullet Fingers. “Those are full grown. They’re just really dinky.”

Alex was impressed and more than a little enchanted. The birds were delicate, adorable, and some of the strangest animals he had ever seen.

One of the adults hopped closer to the fence. Quick as a flash, it darted forward, and when it faced Alex, it had a cricket clutched in its tiny beak. It hopped back to its burrow, where Alex could see a minuscule head poking out of the ground, even smaller than the softball-sized adult.

“ _That’s_ a baby,” said Mullet Fingers.

The owls were comically, ludicrously adorable. They tottered around on twig-like limbs, always looking like they were on the precipice of toppling over. Their soft hoots blended with the sounds of the cicadas and frogs and other twilight creatures. Alex had to restrain himself from squealing and pressing himself against the fence like the two little children were now doing.

The owls were less skittish than most wild birds might be, but they kept well away from the gawking humans, and sudden movements tended to send them fluttering towards the safety of their burrows. Fenced in as they were, they were safe from intruders unwary or malicious. Alex wondered if the families here were the descendants of those first little owls that were nearly bulldozed to make way for the pancake house. Perhaps one of them was the owl that had made itself onto the front page of every news site in the state after it landed on Mullet Fingers’ head during his stand against the developers.

The police officer who had been sitting on the car came to stand next to the three boys. Alex stiffened automatically—Mullet Fingers, at the very least, was a bold and accomplished vandal, and Alex was not even supposed to be in the country—but his companions seemed relaxed.

“Roy, Napoleon. How are you?” The older man's voice carried a fond familiarity.

“Alright, Detective Delinko,” responded Roy. “Just showing Maritza’s friend Alex the owls.” 

Detective Delinko nodded sagely. “Dr. Lobos has her hands full with those manatees, and she still remembers to send people our way. We’re pretty lucky to have her. As are the manatees.”

“How are things going in the CCPD?” asked Roy.

“Oh, fine, fine. You know…” Detective Delinko lowered his voice. “I’ve been looking into that… _yak_ problem you mentioned.” He arched his eyebrow significantly. Alex stifled a laugh. Roy nodded seriously in return. “You guys are usually right about this kind of thing, and I think you’re right about this. But catching them is harder than I’d expected for some… _fancy tourist yaks_. It’s almost like someone’s funneling extra money into bovine stealth. Which most cows don’t need.” Detective Delinko was clearly warming to the bovid metaphor. “I’ll keep working on it from my end, but it’s slow going. The only thing I can tell you is you’re right about the Everglades.” He turned to Alex. “I don’t want to presume, but Dr. Lobos might have some ideas. She’s helped us out before when we were in a tough spot.”

Roy and Mullet Fingers nodded, and the conversation moved on to other news in Coconut Cove. Alex turned this information over in his head. Maritza had promised to take him to the Everglades. Was it a coincidence, or did Maritza know what was going on? The national park wasn’t exactly an uncommon destination for tourists in southern Florida, especially tourists with no interest in the urban hum of Miami or the full-service pampering of the resorts encrusting the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Whether Maritza knew it or not, it was an opportunity to stop asshole tourists from dumping waste into a delicate ecosystem, and Alex intended to take it.

———

It was well and truly night when Alex reluctantly peeled himself away from the owls and caught the bus back to the marine biology center. He arrived just after Maritza, who had taken the opportunity to get a half dozen cartons of Cuban, Dominican, and Puerto Rican takeout, which she and Alex happily attacked.

As Alex helped himself to a second plate of ropa vieja, Maritza said, “I heard you met Roy and Polo today,” she said.

He shook his head. “They said they knew you. Good job not giving me a single thing.”

“Hey! I gave you some pretty obvious hints.”

Alex tilted his head in concession.

“How did you get along?”

“They seemed cool. They took me to this creek with a sunken boat. And I got to see the owls. They said if I wanted to go back tomorrow, they could work on teaching me how to catch mullet.”

Maritza smiled. “Those two are good eggs. You won’t get into too much trouble with them.” She paused and amended, “If you do get into trouble, it’ll only be for a good reason.”

Alex took that as an invitation to bring up Roy and Mullet Fingers’ current dilemma. They had implied that Maritza had helped them out with a similar situation while sitting on top of the _Molly Bell_. “They also said something about dumping in the Everglades…” Alex said, quickly outlining the problem of the mysterious, polluting yachts. When he finished, Maritza tapped her lips thoughtfully.

“Some of my colleagues farther south mentioned similar concerns, and this would make sense.” Alex released a breath he had not realized he had been holding. He had been half-afraid that Maritza would dismiss the issue or forbid him from pursuing it further, even though that did not seem in line with what he had seen of her character so far. “David Delinko might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he’s right to trust those two boys. They have their ways.

“I'm a researching marine biologist, and I have limited official capacity to do anything. But disregarding the fact that a huge part of my job boils down to conservation, and I’d be failing at it if I let something like this slide, I have a professional, ethical obligation to look into this. 

“I don’t want you to feel coerced or guilted into doing something if you don’t want to. You don’t need to say anything, but I get the feeling that you’re used to being treated like that.” She met Alex’s eyes, her own dark, and piercing. “I would love to show you to the Everglades. If all we do is wander around and have fun, I’ll be happy. In fact, that would probably be the best and easiest thing for both of us. But if you’re interested—if you want to help—I wouldn’t say no to another set of eyes. Especially since you seem to have some experience in detecting things that aren’t quite right.

“This is completely your choice. If I don’t check it out this week, I’ll go the next. I have the time, I’m happy to do it, and you deserve a real vacation. Regardless of what you choose, helping does not mean intervening in any way unless it means getting yourself out of a dangerous and unavoidable situation. But if you want to help…” she repeated, trailing off.

Alex had already made up his mind. “I want to help.”

“Then it might be a good idea to invite Roy and Polo to come to the Everglades with us next time you see them.”

Alex nodded. He had already planned on it.

———

Alex returned to Coconut Cove several times over the next few days. Roy and Mullet Fingers were more than happy to accompany Alex on his Everglades scouting expedition, and they were even more excited to hear that Maritza would be joining them. They headed out before dawn a few days later and spent the morning exploring the trails and paddling through the marshland and swamp.

The heat was sticky, and Alex’s shirt was soaked with sweat by ten o’clock, but he did not mind. The Everglades and Big Cypress ran into each other into one vast, protected wilderness. He had read somewhere that the Everglades had been called a “river of grass”. It certainly seemed that way from his position in the kayak, paddling through a slough edged by walls of green. Water and marsh were interspersed with raised clumps of forest (“hammocks,” Maritza told him), dense evergreen and deciduous canopies rose from a floor carpeted in ancient-looking ferns, delicate flowers, and, bizarrely in such a watery environment, what appeared to be cacti. Tall mangroves with their finger-like roots towered above them, and through the trees, he could see the milky turquoise of Florida Bay.

The animals were another source of constant fascination. Fat black, red, and yellow spiders sitting patiently in gossamer webs, sleek black snakes whose scales shimmered to a blue in patches of sunlight, greenish-gold frogs and mouthy toads, a tiny brown lizard with a comically large red dewlap perched majestically on a tree branch, and an assortment of chattering birds in various shades of brown. He was not surprised to see more alligators and crocodiles lurking in the swamp. And he still hadn’t given up hope of seeing a panther.

The problem of the dumping yachts abruptly seized the group’s attention when they came across a patch of sickly looking grass and the smell of dead fish. Slick, thick oil with chunks that Alex didn’t want to think too hard about curled insidiously around the yellowing grass and cowering mangrove roots, carrying with it a school of stiff, dead fish and, more alarmingly, a lifeless hammerhead shark. Alex felt sick and angry, feelings reflected in the faces of his companions.

Maritza grimly snapped some photos with her waterproof camera.

“I know people can be shit, but seriously?” Alex muttered to Roy. “How the hell do they get away with something this big?”

Roy shrugged helplessly. “Nobody’s ever punished, and the people who care enough to do something don’t have the money they need to stop it.”

Alex would stop it, or he’d do his very best to try.

———

They made camp that evening on a raised hammock near the edge of the bay. Their small campfire dinner was tinged with grimness. They had called Detective Delinko to tell him about the most recent developments; he promised to be on standby if they saw anything suspicious that evening. If they could give him a timeline and the boat’s serial number, it would go a long way towards stopping them. Or, more realistically, slapping them with a fine that might make them think twice about their dumping practices, but probably would not, given how expensive the boats clearly were.

Roy would only tolerate so much moroseness that night before stepping in. 

“Alright, enough with the doom and gloom. Time for some tales of terror.”

“Tales of… what?” Alex asked.

“Ghost stories?” said Roy.

“Still not following.”

Roy looked scandalized. “It’s one of America’s greatest camping traditions! Telling stories around the campfire…”

“Ours is barely embers,” Alex pointed out. (Mullet Fingers added another log to the smoldering pile.)

“… haunted monkey hands, disembodied footsteps?” He looked at Alex’s still-bewildered expression. “Wow, you’ve seriously never done this. The point is to creep each other out. That way we’re all on edge when things go bump in the night. Have you never gone camping?”

“I have…”

“And you and your friends never did this?”

“I always went with my uncle.”

“Okay, and when it was nighttime and the campfire was dying and the whole thing was suitably creepy you and your uncle would…?”

“Go to sleep. Or practice navigating rough terrain by feel and sound.”

Mullet Fingers looked askance at Alex. “And I thought I had a weird childhood.”

“The point remains, there’s nothing like telling a good scary story in the dark,” Roy cut in.

“I don’t think I know any."

“Well then Alex, you can make one up, though the best stories are the ones that really happened. You go last, I’ll start.”

Roy launched into Colombian folk tales that his mother and grandmother had told him when he was a child. Alex was familiar with some of the characters that Roy described; the Hombre Caiman and the backward-footed Boraro were reminiscent of the gruesome Aztec gods Damian Cray chose to feature in his sickening video game. His final tale was about El Sombrerón.

“Almost two hundred years ago, an old man lived in the green valleys of Antioquia. He was stern-faced and well-dressed and wore nothing but black, from his black hat and fine suit to the black horse he rode from village to village. Nobody could say who he was; a priest or a tax collector, or perhaps simply a wanderer. While he lived, he harmed nobody. But as all men do, he died.

“When he died, the man’s spirit change from the taciturn rider known throughout the valley. Perhaps it became twisted in death, or perhaps it simply lacked the restraint of a human body.

“He appears suddenly in a gust of icy wind, targeting those wanderers who are out late at night to cause mischief. He haunts the drunks and cheats, the gamblers and the fighters, chasing them through the lonely, squares or clearings in the woods. Sometimes, he is aided by two large, black dogs. He hunts by the light of the moon. The deep shadows cast by the branches and bushes hide him and reach out like fingers to scare the troublemakers he chases.

“He disappears as he arrives, suddenly and without a trace. And those troublemakers he chases? They’d better reform or they’d better run because nobody is alive to say what happens if they get caught.

“They say it’s just a story to scare people straight or fragments of the hazy memories after a drunken night, but I’m not so sure. The summer after I turned fifteen, I visited my grandmother who lives in the valleys near Medellín. One night, I was taking a shortcut through the forest when I passed through a clearing. One moment it was hot and humid, the next it was freezing. The wind blew, and I thought I heard a voice. I turned. Silhouetted in the moonlight on top of a nearby hill was a man on a horse, and he was looking at me. Two shadows prowled around his feet. They looked almost like dogs. At first, I assumed it was an old man heading to the village. I wasn’t even thinking about the old story, though I was confused about why he was out so late. Then the horse began to walk towards me, very slowly. When he reached the bottom of the hill, he stopped again, looking at me, and all of the sudden I felt this wave of dread. I’d never experienced fear like that before in my life. The shadows by the man seemed to be growing bigger. I turned and ran, sprinting all the way home. I never told anyone, but a few years later when I was back in Colombia and headed to the village, my Abuela said ‘no regreses muy tarde, no querrás que el Sombrerón te persiga de nuevo.’ She knew all along.”

There was a long pause. The air filled with the sound of nocturnal creatures and the crackling fire. Then,

“Wait a damn second!” said Mullet Fingers, staring at Roy wide-eyed. “Is that why you were putting salt on the windows and carrying a rosary everywhere for about two years?”

“It’s what you’re supposed to do!” Roy protested.

“I’ve never even seen you go to mass!”

“Dude, I’d just seen a literal ghost! What would you have done?”

“Holy water squirt guns and a hula hoop filled with salt,” Mullet Fingers said promptly, and the group dissolved into laughter, even Alex.

Eventually, the laughter subsided. “That’s a good one, Roy,” Maritza said, wiping tears from her eyes. “Should I go next?” The others nodded, and she began.

“A brother and a sister lived on an island on the edge of a vast forest. It was filled with spirits, which were friendly and gentle and generally helpful as long as you treated them with respect. The brother and sister knew this and made sure not to disturb the spirits by breaking green branches or throwing rocks at songbirds or leaving trash in the forest’s streams and ponds.

“One day, a man arrived at the village where the brother and sister lived. He came from across the sea to make his fortune. He didn’t understand the ways of the forest, and when he looked at the trees and the animals and the clear water, instead of living spirits, he saw profit. The villagers tried to caution him against interfering with la selva, but he did not listen. He had tools to hack and burn and drill. They made him feel invincible.

“The spirits were powerful, but not enough to stop the man’s attack. They fled deeper into the forest, and the man, having seen no signs of the spirits, dismissed it as a country superstition.

“The brother and sister saw that if he continued, the spirits would become angry and retaliate. The forest would still be irreparably damaged, but the spirit response could destroy the island. The man would not listen to reason, but he had to be stopped.

“The brother and sister were the descendants of a powerful trickster, and those same abilities ran through their veins. They could not defeat the man through force but through cleverness.

“The boy went to the foreigner, claiming that he cared little for the land and wanted to apprentice to the foreigner and make his own fortune too. While he was distracted, the girl crept to the edge of the forest, which had been driven back and was red with upturned soil, and where his tools of destruction now lay. Using her wits and some simple items from the village—a box of matches, a pair of scissors, a cast-off tool—she destroyed every single one, and sent them rolling miles down the mountain and into the sea. The forest was safe and the brother and sister made sure to return every year to honor the spirits, even when they traveled across the sea to make their own way in the world. The end,” she added.

“Was that… inspired by real events?” Roy asked.

“Now what on earth would make you say that?” asked Maritza, the picture of innocence. They all laughed.

Mullet Fingers began to speak. “You guys know that when I was eleven, I ran away. I stuck to Coconut Cove at first. Beatrice was there, I knew all the good places to hide and sleep, it was my home.

“After all of the stuff with the pancake house, I got shipped up to military school. Again. And I ran away. Again. I came back to Coconut Cove. I even saw you once or twice, Roy, though I didn’t stay hi.” Roy was nodding, transfixed. Alex got the feeling that he had not heard this story before.

“But my face was in the newspapers,” Mullet Fingers went on. “People were on the lookout for a homeless blonde kid. They were paying too much attention to me. I had to leave. I headed south.

“I didn’t know it at first, but I’d made my way to the Everglades. Living there was different. Wilder. Harder. I said I lived alone before, but I didn’t. Not really. Don’t get me wrong, people can be a fucking pain and I loved being out here with the birds and the snakes and the alligators and sleeping under the stars. But when there aren’t people nearby… well, nature takes its own course I guess, or there aren’t enough humans wandering around with salt and bibles and shit.

“I was living on my own for months before I started to notice things. Little stuff, at first. I’m climbing a tree on a sunny day, but when I get back to the ground, I find myself in a mist-filled hollow where nothing looks familiar. The bag I had tied tight on a branch is on the ground, still tied, but when I open it up, there’s a cottonmouth inside.

“At first I didn’t know what to think. Maybe someone was messing with me, or maybe I was just going crazy. The months go by. It’s almost winter and getting cooler, but it’s southern Florida, so it’s not that cold, right? One night I’m sleeping in one of those big southern oaks, and I wake up shivering. It is _freezing_. Like, I can see my breath and the fingers are numb. I can’t see the ground; it’s covered in mist. There’s a full moon, and through the trees, I see movement. I figure it’s a deer or a panther or something. It’s passing in and out of the shadows so it’s hard to tell, but as it gets closer, I can tell it’s too tall for anything in the forest.

“It looks human, but… not. Not quite. It was the way it moved. It… glided, almost. I don’t know how to describe how it walked. It came closer, and I couldn’t move. I was frozen—and not just because it was fucking cold. She—this person—stopped right under the branch I was sleeping on and looked right at me. I could see her eyes. They were this… pale, pale blue. They were the same eyes I’d seen in the panthers twice before. She didn’t say anything, but it was like I could hear her voice in my mind. Saying _leave. Leave. Leave now, before it’s too late._

“I must have fallen asleep again because when I opened my eyes, the sun was up and everything was normal. The only tracks under the tree were my own. But I had this feeling in my chest that something wasn’t right, so I left that morning. I went back to Coconut Cove. I’d been gone about a year. I figured most folks would have forgotten me by that point.

“Two days after I left, one of the strongest storms to ever hit Florida struck the Everglades. Trees fell down, animals fled, acres and acres were flooded. If I’d stayed I would have drowned. I don’t know if it was a dream or a ghost or some sort of spirit like in Maritza’s story, but whatever it was, it saved my life.” Mullet Fingers stared into the dying fire, lost in thought. Roy was looking at him still, his eyes gentle, one arm pressed over the boy’s shoulder. After a moment, Mullet Fingers leaned into him. Real or not, Alex sensed that this touched on a painful moment in Mullet Fingers’ tumultuous life, one that he did not often—if ever—speak about. Alex knew a little something about that.

Roy turned to Alex, eyes still gentle but slightly distant. It was clear his mind was still on the story of the boy beside him. “Alex? Would you like to go?” He was probably hoping for a lighter tale. Alex wasn’t the person for that. But the three around the fire had all shared pieces of themselves, and he owed them that at least. Alex took a breath and began.

“There was once a man who lived in a world much like our own. Like most men, the world in which he lived did not match his idea of how it should be. He was clever and wealthy but had not enough money to re-shape the world to his liking, and his ideas for a ‘perfect world’ were too cruel for his clever words to make them real.

“This world was one of magic, magic that could cure illnesses and build ships that reached the stars. This magic was strictly governed. Many achievements that were theoretically possible were forbidden for falling outside of the code of magic that was lawful or right. If the man wanted to bring about his desired changes, he would need to do it in secret.

“The man moved to the peak of a remote mountain, where he began to study magic of the darkest kind. Eventually, he unlocked the secret of life. He created sixteen boys out of the mountain rock; he called them his sons, but in reality, they were extensions of himself. He loved these sons in his own way, but he was not contented.

“He desired that his sons would live in the world of his darkest dreams, and for that, they would need greater opportunities than those that lay at the top of the mountain. His sons knew his thoughts, for he had shared them, and as they were a part of him, his desires were a part of them. The man therefore set about devising a way to place his children in positions of power so they could bring about the new order.

“The man’s dark plans remained unknown. To the rest of the world, he was still a brilliant and well-respected magician, if eccentric. Calling on this reputation, the man reached out to powerful men with troublesome sons; he offered to take the sons in for a time to his home on the mountain, where he would educate them and break them of their unruly behavior. These men were powerful and busy, and many saw their sons as little more than annoyances. They agreed.

“On the top of the mountain, the sons were sullen and through their studies improved very little, but that did not matter, for the magician’s own sons were studying as well. They watched the sons of the powerful men, and using magic, they began to transform into exact copies of the unwilling students. The spells they used were agonizing and irreversible, but it would all be worth it. For, once in their new forms, the magician contrived to send his own sons to the homes of the powerful men, where they would be in the perfect position to take power when their father commanded it.

“All went according to plan until the arrival of the final student. He too was the son of a powerful man—or so they thought. For one of the fathers had noticed the ruse and was killed, but not before he sent word of his suspicions the spymaster of the king.

“The spymaster was not a kind man or a good one, but he was fiercely loyal to the kingdom and would do what he must to keep the kingdom safe. One of his spies had recently been killed by a fierce adversary, a man who moved like a ghost through the world, doing the bidding of those rich enough to harness his power. The dead spy had a ward, an orphan who knew a little of the craft but he had no desire to follow in his guardian’s footsteps. The spymaster disagreed.

“The boy had no power to resist the demands of the ruthless spymaster, so he went to the mountain, posing as the son of another rich, powerful man. He uncovered the plot and sent word to the spymaster. But not before the magician’s final son had already transformed into him.

“Because the young spy was not who he said he was, the magic did not work as fully as it was meant, and the transformation was incomplete. Therefore, the magician needed to take a more hands-on approach to help his youngest son realize his final form.

“The magician decided to tie the boy down and cut him open. The spy’s blood and screams and tears were needed, so he would be kept awake while the final son absorbed the essence of his voice and his veins and his beating heart.

“As an infant, the young spy had been charmed with luck. He managed to escape before the first slice of the knife and contacted the spymaster, who sent the army of the kingdom. They defeated the magician and rescued the genuine sons. The magician’s magic was broken and his offspring turned back into stone. All except one. The duplicate of the spy escaped. He realized the deception; he would never have been able to pass for the son of a rich and powerful man because no such son existed.

“The remaining magician’s son was driven mad with rage and swore revenge. He haunted the young spy throughout the world, the spy who had been broken by the spymaster and continued to unwillingly serve the kingdom, waiting for death. The magician’s son tried to kill him many times, and the young spy did not retaliate was in hopes that one day the magician’s son would succeed, releasing him from the horrors of his enslavement. 

“It was only when the magician’s son killed the one last person in the world who the spy loved that the spy finally responded in kind. The magician’s final son was dead. But he was not utterly defeated. For, whenever the young spy fell asleep, the face of the final son, a twisted version of his own, haunted his already-bloody dreams. The young spy would never sleep peacefully again.”

When Alex finished, it took a few moments for him to become conscious of the night sounds again, and he became aware of Maritza’s soothing hand on his arm.

“Alex… Might this also have been inspired by real events?” Alex shrugged, looking into the fire. Maritza didn’t seem to mind; on the contrary, she wrapped her arms around him and gave him a gentle hug. Alex stiffened for a moment and then relaxed into her arms. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone but Jack had touched him in a way that wasn’t clinical or threatening. Sitting here around the campfire with this motley group… It felt nice. Like a team. It had been a while since he’d had anything like that.

———

They retired to bed soon after. It took Alex a while to fall asleep, and when he did he slept lightly, awoken by the heavy, humid heat or the odd animal rustle. There was also the inconvenient recurring thought that Alex only had a handful of days left before he was either dragged back to Miami, either because the adults weren’t competent enough to do their own jobs and would decide to toss him into a crumbling mission, or because Alex’s initial return ticket was scheduled for that Saturday night. It was a relief when the velvety blue sky began to lighten into a paler cerulean. The sun and Alex’s three companions were good distractions from his unquiet mind.

The second day was also sent between hammock, swamp, and sea. Maritza had brought her snake moving stick again, which was a good thing too as they ran into one of the ropy brown cottonmouths (despite his story from the night before, Mullet Fingers waved at them like they were his old friends.)

Roy turned out to be as much of a fountain of ecological knowledge as Maritza; he was majoring in botany and ecological restoration in college, and through his enthusiastic factoids, Alex gained a new appreciation for trees. Tall mahoganies crowned with pale green leaves played host to squawking tropical birds. The gnarled southern oaks looked like they belonged more in a fantasy world than a beachy national park, and they were solid enough that Mullet Fingers was able to give them all impromptu tree-climbing lessons. Alex was sure it would come in handy during some mission or another. The smooth-barked gumbo-limbo was twisted and eerie, haunting in a different way than the drooping trees of Big Cypress, but no less captivating. Alex was reminded again of how different a world this was than the one he usually inhabited; this land wasn’t tamed by millennia of human cultivation, nor was it a jarring backdrop for some or another terror that was being inflicted on Alex. It had been a while since he had taken the time to appreciate natural beauty for its own sake. This place, and the loving reverence with which Maritza, Roy, and Mullet Fingers stepped through it, evoked in Alex long-forgotten feelings of wonder.

They encountered no more sickly refuse during the second day, and it was almost forgotten by the time they made their way back to their camp in the clump of mangroves. The orange-red setting sun cast the bay and glade in a fiery glow. Dinner felt much more relaxed that evening. Alex allowed himself to think that maybe this wasn’t his responsibility after all. Maybe, for once, a vacation would turn out to be just that. Maritza and the others didn’t seem to expect anything of him in this regard, just an extra set of eyes if they happened to be in the right place at the right time. Alex still felt a spark of guilt when he thought of his impending departure. It often came “down to him” and he rarely had any sort of reliable team to work with. This felt like a mission he couldn’t let go of, minus the usual crushing feeling that preceded his inevitable suffering.

A few feet away from Alex, Mullet Fingers jerked up from his position lounging on Roy’s chest. He pointed to a dark smudge on the horizon. “What’s that?”

It became quickly apparent that the dark smudge in question was a boat—one of the fleet they had identified earlier.

Roy swore. “We should’ve gotten Delinko out here. We can take all the photos we want, but from this far away, they won’t be able to prove much of anything.” He slumped defeatedly. “It won’t do anything, and we’ll still be standing by as they pour more poison into the water.”

Mullet Fingers patted his arm consolingly. “I think you’ve forgotten who you’re with.”

Roy looked up, eyes sharp. “I have not. Even if we get closer, it won’t help much in changing anything.”

This feeling, the time crunch, the mission on the precipice of abandonment, the near-impossible task; this was where Alex lived. “Not with that attitude, we can’t.”

Maritza looked at him with narrowed eyes. “We will call our lovely friend Detective Delinko and tell him what is happening. Short of stopping them, best thing is to get the best evidence we can _from a safe distance_ , and maybe that’s all we can do. I don’t want you to do anything risky,” she told Alex sternly. “Between Santi, Roy, and Polo, I’ve got enough dumb boys doing dumb boy things to worry about.”

“Hey!” interjected Mullet Fingers.

“Me?? I said no too!” Roy said at the same time.

Maritza ignored Roy and Mullet Fingers’ exclamations of protest. “Don’t make me add you to that list,” she said to Alex.

Alex promised. It wasn’t exactly a lie. Alex wasn’t planning on taking any _dumb_ risks. Just calculated ones. Now he stood and was now taking inventory of their supplies. “Anyone fancy an evening boat ride?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890-1998) was an American suffragette and environmental activist who was responsible for much of the push to keep the Everglades safe from development. In 1947, she published a book called _The Everglades: River of Grass_ , one of the most influential literary influences on conservation in United States history.
> 
>  _"no regreses muy tarde, no querrás que el Sombrerón te persiga de nuevo"_ means "don't come back too late, you don't want Sombrerón to chase you again"
> 
>  _la selva_ means "the jungle"
> 
>  _ropa vieja_ (literally "old clothes") is a delicious beef-based Cuban dish.


	6. Aboard the Virgen Santísima

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know very little about boats, and this one is based off of the hazy memory of a yacht I once saw anchored in a harbor that was way too small for it. They had to call the harbormaster and some fishing boats to haul it back out. It was all very funny.

Kayaking can be silent when one is not busy splashing one's' friends. Alex, Mullet Fingers, Roy, and Maritza cut swiftly through the smooth, inky black water. They managed to glide up beside the yacht unobserved. They were hidden by the enormous hull, on which somebody had painted the boat's name, _La Virgen Santísima_ , in bright silver letters next to a pinup-style painting of a scantily-clad nun. They immediately resumed the furiously whispered argument that had begun onshore.

———

“Alex, you’re a kid!”

“Exactly, they’ll never suspect! It’s worked well for M…me in the past.”

“Yeah, it’s worked well for you. What, you think I’m stupid??? There’ve been rumors going around about a little British kid who keeps getting forced into espionage by whichever government needs him. Santi and I have a pretty good idea it’s you!”

“Yeah, well, they make a good point on occasion!”

“I saw you in that voodoo store we passed, asking whether it works on ‘ex-government wankers currently across several thousand miles of ocean, or do I have to wait until we’re on the same continent again’ is _not_ smooth!”

“Maybe I want to get back at the guy who ticketed my bike for being locked to a ‘pedestrian crossing’ sign.”

“Or maybe you’re a kid who should stay out of grown-up business!”

“That never stopped me before! Or them!”

“Maybe it should have!”

“I have actual experience taking down people with better security and crazier plans!”

“Yeah, and you got shot! Don’t give me that look, I know what a bullet scar looks like.”

“That was a sniper who shot me _because_ of a mission, not _on_ one!”

“Dude!”

“I was _fine_! The CIA shot me into space like two weeks later!”

“I’m not even going to ask.”

“Sounds like I’ve convinced you.”

“Not even close. You don’t even have backup if something goes wrong!”

“I usually don’t!”

“You’re fucking joking.”

“Well, I was given a panic button once and they only made me wait two days.”

“¿Pero qué coño?”

“See??? You guys will be better backup than I’ve had before!”

“That’s not as good an argument as you think!”

“You have a satellite phone with a direct line to the DEA which has a significant personal interest in your safety because your brother is one of their star agents. If anything goes wrong you can call for help and they’ll actually come!”

“Again, not reassuring!”

“Doesn’t it mean anything that I actually want to go this time???”

“Yeah, that you worked for manipulative bastards who I want to punch in the balls!”

“Hm, you could probably get close enough to do that. What’s your travel availability?”

“Ay bendito, stay off the god damn boat!”

“You’re not my mom, you can’t make me do anything!”

“Yeah, I’m just a responsible adult who doesn’t like the idea of a high schooler trying to take out all the goons on a yacht the size of a mansion!”

———

“I know you think nature is healing, but the first time I talked to you for real you were dying from infected dog bites! I can’t lose you to something this stupid, Monito!”

“I wasn’t dying! And I don’t see any dogs this time!”

“No, but there are people with guns!”

“I’m stealthy! Super good at sneaking!”

“They’ll be on alert!”

“In the middle of the ocean???"

“There are security guards, it’s their job!”

“They won’t expect anyone sneaking around!”

“Doesn’t matter!”

“I still manage to sneak up on you, even when you expect it, and we live together!”

“Last time you did something this stupid you got shot by a poacher who thought you were a panther! Your back looks like a bird took a dump on it!”

“Well, the real panther avenged me. We have a spiritual connection, weren't you listening last night? That jerk’s ass will never be the same. Those tooth marks don’t come out in the wash.”

“Look!” Mullet Fingers’ voice cut through the angry whispers. “We’re running out of time. Alex and I can sneak around and see what’s going on. Get in and get out. We’ll be fine. If we aren’t, you two can call for help. Got it?” Without waiting for a response, he stood up in his kayak, sending it wobbling dangerously. Despite his protestations moments before, Roy shot out a hand to steady the boat. In a move worthy of Yassen Gregorovich, Mullet Fingers managed to spring out of the rocking kayak, grab ahold of the railing, and pull himself up and over. Had Yassen survived the events aboard Air Force One, Alex imagined that he would have admired the fluid grace with which Mullet Fingers leaped onto the ship and the silence of his catlike landing.

Mullet Fingers’ blonde head popped up a moment later. “Coast’s clear.” He reached down and hauled Alex up, and the two of them made their way into the ship. Silence resumed on the water.

———

True to his word, Mullet Fingers was a master of stealth, even outside of his preferred environment of reeds and mangroves. His footsteps were soundless, and when he noticed Alex’s method of slipping from shadow to shadow, he quickly incorporated it into his own silent tread. A quick sweep of the ship showed ten passengers. Four guests, four crew, and two security, both armed. Awfully few people for such a big boat, but it must have cost an obscene amount of money to rent in the first place, so they might as well have the run of the place. The sight of the firearms gave Alex a twinge of unease, but Mullet Fingers appeared unconcerned. This was America, after all.

The guests were in various states of intoxication and seemed to be trying to outdo each other’s ridiculous wagers at the poker table. The guards hovered near the guests, though they seemed more concerned about somebody falling overboard and mistaking a crocodile for a pool float than about anyone being brazen enough to physically attack the ship.

“So,” Alex whispered from their hiding place behind several crates of expensive-looking alcohol. “You seem to have the hang of this sabotage thing. And more experience with boats. Any ideas?”

Mullet Fingers held up an orange box labeled “Fiberglass Boat Repair Kit.” Alex was impressed; he hadn’t even noticed that the other boy had swiped the neon crate.

“Boats like these usually have one waste tube. We have epoxy and expanding foam.”

“How many ‘boats like these’ have you been on?”

“None, far as the owners know.”

Alex stifled a laugh. “Last time I was anywhere like this I got knocked out by an assassin and thrown into a bullfighting ring.”

“Wow, what a dick.” Mullet Fingers was indignant. “Bullfighting is a stupid sport for cowardly assholes.”

“Yeah, I thought so too.”

“No bullfights here, at least. They might try to throw you to the crocs,” Mullet Fingers added reflectively, “but that’s not the end of the world. You’d probably be fine.”

“Someone tried to do that to me once, too. Dude had a lot of flair. And fire, by the end.”

Mullet Fingers snorted. When he regained control over himself, he peered cautiously around the edge of the boxes; Alex followed suit. The drunken revelers had transitioned from the card game to a slurred argument about which of them had better inside sources for stock-trading tips. The armed guards had moved a little closer to the shouting match, which appeared on the brink of turning into a sloppy physical scuffle. Though both guards’ expressions remained stoic, Alex could see a muscle twitching in the nearer guard's jaw.

“Coast looks as clear as it’ll ever be,” breathed Mullet Fingers.

“Spectacular. Lead the way, sir.”

In Mullet Fingers’ experience, this tube was usually most accessible from the lowest deck, which he explained to Alex as they crept down the stairwell. The combination of the boys’ hyper-vigilance and raucous passengers allowed them to name it to the lowest deck undetected. It was dimly lit and through some lingering miracle, empty, save for was a pair of ugly black jet skis and several stacks of unremarkable-looking crates. Alex thought that the kind of person who stored enormous jet skis like those inside his monstrous yacht must surely be compensating for something.

Mullet Fingers took a brief survey of the room. “They need to physically come down here and press that to discharge the sewage,” Mullet Fingers explained, gesturing towards a lever in the wall helpfully marked “WASTE RELEASE.” “That’s our first stop.”

“And the exit tube?” asked Alex?

“Underwater.”

“And how will we manage that? I can swim and I’ve worked underwater before, but it’ll be hard to do it blind.”

“We won’t. I will.”

“Far be it from me to tell anyone else that something’s dangerous, but this sounds like the kind of risky Maritza and Roy wanted us to avoid.”

“They’ll be here if I need help. You stay here, keep a lookout. Give it ten minutes. If I’m not back, get Maritza and Roy.”

“And how should I do that?”

“Jump off and swim.” Alex wanted to object. He didn’t like being left behind, he never had, and this was bringing back vivid memories of the two CIA agents and their ill-fated dive at Skeleton Cay. But this, Alex reminded himself, was different. There were no ridiculous snapping cages, nobody on the boat was yet aware of their presence on board, and it would give Alex a chance to look around. He had a funny feeling about those crates.

Mullet Fingers was looking at Alex expectantly, and he shrugged in ascent.

“Release first,” Mullet Fingers directed. Alex poured epoxy and foam over the lever with enthusiasm. When they’d finished, it looked like a giant orange fungus had spontaneously grown on the boat’s smooth white fiberglass wall.

Mullet Fingers and Alex made their way to the end of the lowest deck, open to the humid tropical night. Mullet Fingers was just about to lean out over the edge and lower himself into the water when Alex jerked him back. The boys stumbled backward with the sudden momentum but managed to keep their balance. Alex pointed up and then at the smooth, reflective water below them. One of the security guards had chosen that moment to lean over the railing and have a smoke. Had Mullet Fingers moved any farther, he would have exposed himself to the decks above. There was no way the guard would have missed him, and still less of a chance that Mullet Fingers could out-swim bullets.

Mullet Fingers looked at Alex, wide-eyed. “Nobody ever looks up,” he mouthed. His hands were trembling slightly. Adrenaline, probably. Spotting the guard had sent a full-body jolt through Alex, and he took a moment to inhale and calm his shaking nerves.

When they were both breathing more steadily, Alex and Mullet Fingers repositioned themselves so they could see the reflection of the upper deck. The image remained unchanged. The guard did not seem to have noticed that anything was amiss below. Unfortunately, he did not appear to be in any hurry to finish his cigarette. Alex wished that the guard’s inebriated clients were a bit more demanding. He could feel the seconds ticking by, each minute spent waiting bringing them closer to discovery. There was only so much time before they would be found, even with such an unsuspecting crew. 

Though it lasted only a few minutes, the delay felt like an eternity. Finally, the guard finished and flicked the smoldering butt lazily over the edge of the boat (Alex could see a flicker of rage in his Mullet Fingers’ face as the glowing ember spiraled towards the water.) They double-checked—this time, both looked up—to ensure the coast was clear. Then, Mullet Fingers took a bottle of epoxy and expanding foam and dove off the boat without so much as a splash. The only sign of his entry was a small ripple in the water. Alex set his watch for ten minutes.

One minute was gone. There was no sign of Mullet Fingers. Alex headed back into the hold. He circled the room, looking for something to pry off the lids of the crates. Alex supposed the expensive-looking water skis propped against one wall would do as well as any crowbar. He wedged the curved end of the ski under the edge of the box and gently began to pry it open. The crack of the splintering wood made him cringe, and he paused again, listening intently for the sounds of anybody approaching. Nothing. With painstaking care, he continued to pry the box open.

———

Napoleon Bridger Leep—more commonly known as Mullet Fingers, and occasionally Polo (by the Lobos siblings) or Monito (by Roy)—didn’t have any trouble with the waste pipe. He did not expect any; similar operations had gone swimmingly (he laughed to himself at that thought) before. As an afterthought, he also jammed up the gas cap. It was petty and annoying, but in his mind, well-deserved. Not to mention, it was a reminder to the entitled jerks of the world that their callous disregard for the damages they inflicted on the beautiful world around them did not go unnoticed or unpunished.

As Alex had surmised, Mullet Fingers did have extensive experience in committing nautical sabotage against arrogant jerks who thought that Florida’s wilderness only existed as a receptacle for the trash they were too lazy to put in a bin. It rankled him that this was only a temporary fix, but it was better than doing nothing. Roy and Maritza had connections and photographs and video. The combination of a hefty fine and an even heftier repair bill might make them think twice about their disposal practices.

When he was finally satisfied with the destruction he had inflicted on the offending boat, he surfaced and took a moment to tread water. The bay was soft and warm, and the night was cloudless. A sliver of moon hung in a black velvet sky dotted with stars. How anyone could want to ruin this, with the bright lights of their cities or the smog of their cars and factories and cargo ships, was something he would never comprehend. He was glad that Maritza had sent Alex their way. Their young new friend seemed to soak up the wonder at the beauty of Florida’s hidden places that Roy and Mullet Fingers had shared for years. Mullet Fingers had always cared. Seeing somebody else—a total stranger—experience their unique little world, witness the abuses imposed on it, and agree that it was something worth fighting for was a reminder of why he doggedly kept at such a Sisyphean task.

Eventually, the memory of where he was and what he was trying to do trickled back to Mullet Fingers. He did have a tendency to get lost in his own melodramatic reflections; the ten minutes were likely almost up, and he supposed he had better head back. Alex seemed capable, made so under grim circumstances if Maritza’s theories and the story Alex had told the night before were right, but that did not mean it would be acceptable to put him in an unnecessarily risky position.

Mullet Fingers drifted closer to the edge of the lower deck, remembering this time to check the upper decks for signs of unwanted observers. He appeared to remain undiscovered. As he came nearer, he heard a muffled thump. “Alex?” he called softly. “Everything good?”

He saw the edge of Alex’s face as it swiveled around, searching for onlookers. He must have been satisfied because he furtively poked his head out a moment later. 

“All clear,” Alex said. “Only, could you ask Maritza to get her brother on the line? Looks like we’ve found his missing link.”

———

Alex should have given David Delinko more credit. The detective may have been a bit of a dimwit, but his suspicions about the unusually stealthy pleasure yachts were not far off. Perhaps it was not the most original delivery method in the world, but the flashiness of the boats would probably distract curious eyes from their cargo which, from the first two crates Alex had carefully opened, seemed to consist mostly of cocaine. It seemed as though the regular waste-dumping also included the delivery of kilos of drugs. Alex was not sure if the two were connected. Was it some sort of smokescreen, or did it wash away evidence of some other illicit dealings? The thickness of the sludge could be attributed to some nasty drug-manufacturing byproducts. Or maybe it was unrelated entirely, and they were just assholes.

This also but more of a dire spin on his minor acts of sabotage. Their discovery was inevitable, but given the boat trips' newly-uncovered purpose, it was likely that they would radio their companion vessels, dispose of the evidence, and disappear. This crucial part of the case would disintegrate, Ramos would escape, and the DEA and CIA would be back to square one. And this time, Alex was fairly certain that even if Joe Byrne did not discover Alex’s role in blowing the operation, he would find some excuse to throw Alex in the field. Hell, at sixteen, American children were allowed to enlist in the military with parental permission. Given MI6’s permissive attitude towards Alex’s safety, he would not be surprised if they threw him onto the streets of Miami to try to infiltrate the cartel as one of Ramos’s goons. If the CIA played their cards right, they might even get Alex to take out some other thorn in their side to prove himself to Ramos. They would be happy to kill two sleazy birds with one leaden stone. If Alex wanted to get out of the country by the time autumn term started, he would need to wrap up this investigation now. It looked like the CIA would be making use of their teenage spy after all.

Alex’s reverie was interrupted by a creak behind him. He slid into the shadows behind one of the enormous jet skis. It was one of the boat staff (who seemed much more sinister now that he knew who they worked for). It would be impossible to miss the open crates. The man would alert the rest of the crew, and they would probably take the boat too far from shore for Alex to swim back, and then it would be only a matter of time before he was found. Best case scenario, they would somehow figure out who he was and use him as a bargaining chip. That kind of blackmail would hold off most of US Intelligence, with Australia and Great Britain added in for good measure. Given her connection to the DEA, Maritza might get out relatively unscathed, but Roy and Mullet Fingers had no such protection. Mullet Fingers would return any second now, perhaps with Maritza and Roy in tow. This whole situation was a ticking time bomb, and Alex knew that if he did nothing, this man would light the fuse that would get him and his friends seriously injured or killed.

The good news was the man—deckhand, drug delivery man, cartel goon—had not seemed to notice that anything was amiss. His posture was still relaxed, his gait leisurely, and his eyes slid over the oddly shaped shadow to his left. For now, surprise was still on Alex’s side. The man paused. Something on the ground had caught his eye. It was the silver glint of a screw that had been thrown free from the lid when Alex had pried it off. _Well fuck_ , thought Alex. _Guess it’s now or never._ The man bent down to look closer. Alex sprang.

Alex aimed for his throat, not a killing blow but one that would make speaking impossible, following it up with a swift knee to the solar plexus. Winded, the man could do little when Alex put him in a chokehold, the pressure on the man’s carotid arteries and jugular veins quickly cutting off the blood supply to his brain. In less than twenty seconds, he was unconscious. 

Alex had spotted bungee cords in a tangled pile by the water skis, and with the help of some duct tape he had found in the boat repair kit, he bound and gagged the man before dragging him behind some crates and covering him with a canvas tarp for good measure. He had no idea how long it would be before his crewmates noticed their colleague was missing, but unless the argument upstairs degenerated into a full-out brawl, it would not be too long. Alex would need to disable the radio and engine, possibly the jet skis and little motorboat, if he wanted to be thorough. It would be difficult to outrun that kind of pursuit in kayaks. Speaking of…

Alex heard the soft splash of a paddle and saw Maritza, Roy, and Mullet Fingers cautiously approach the hold a moment later. Mullet Fingers leaped out (somehow managing to remain silent even in sopping-wet clothing) and held the kayaks steady as Maritza and Roy disembarked. They tied up the boats loosely, allowing them to drift around to the shadowed starboard. Unless somebody was looking closely, they would be difficult to detect.

“Alex, I’ve got Santi on the line,” whispered Maritza. “He already knows what we’re doing here. Tell him what you found.”

Alex rapidly described the contents of the crates and the telltale insignia branded on the sides. He mentioned the unconscious deckhand trussed up several feet away ( _“Alex!”_ hissed Maritza) and his vague plans to take out the radio and engine.

Santiago Lobos was quiet for a moment, and Alex could hear the sounds of typing in the background. A moment later, he spoke.

“Okay. I’ve run the registration number through the system. You’re right, they’ve been registered to Ramos’s godmother, who’s been dead the past twenty years. I’m rounding up some resources in Miami and the Coast Guard; we’ll be there within the hour. Killing the radio and engine would be a big help, but you need to get off that ship. This is not safe. You are a child, and the four of you are civilians.

“Yes, I know,” he continued, cutting off Alex’s noise of protest. “This isn’t your first rodeo. But I don’t give a shit what the CIA or MI6 or ASIS or the goddamn President of the United States thinks you’re capable of. This is not your responsibility, and if Joe Byrne thinks otherwise, he can shove it up his ass.”

“Fine.” As refreshing as it was to hear an adult in the intelligence world tell him in no uncertain terms that his continued “employment” by various unscrupulous agencies was unacceptable, it was not helping his current scenario. “But they haven’t spotted us yet, and if we do nothing, they could get away or call in reinforcements or chase us down. Tell us what to do so we stand a chance.”

Santi sighed. “Maritza can take care of the radio. She's done it before.” The three boys looked up, wide-eyed, chests shaking with silent laughter. Maritza shrugged, a smile tugging at her lips.

“Alex, go with her,” Santi continued. “Maritza’s the most responsible of you morons, even if days like today make me question that. Don’t take stupid risks. I know your reputation.

“Roy and Polo, take the engine. I’m putting a ten-minute time limit on this. If you four aren’t done by then, doesn’t matter. Get off the boat. You’re no use to anyone if you’re dead.” The radio clicked off.

“Well, that was grim,” said Roy.

“Yeah, we call him Señor Positividad,” replied Maritza. "He will definitely yell at me later for this."

“Wasn’t he an active participant in the whole ‘chasing the evil developer out of Puerto Rico’ story you told last night?” Alex enquired.

“Yes, those were the good old days. He’s much less fun now,” Maritza said with a sigh.

“But he’s right. We’d better get moving. Alex,” Maritza turned to him, all business. “We need some a screwdriver, a lighter, and duct tape.” Supplies in hand (Alex grabbed one of the water skis at the last second—it could make a useful weapon), the two began their slow creep upstairs.

———

The yacht was a shiny, modern white. The ten passengers were a mix of young businessmen, security, and crew. Nobody expected any trouble. This was Florida, after all, and the boat belonged to Ramos. Nobody in the know would be stupid enough to attack it, and if they did… Well, that’s what the guards were for. They were real bruisers, and they were armed. Better safe than sorry if you were with Ramos. The passengers on the yacht were certainly safe. The most dangerous things out there (besides themselves) were the alligators and crocodiles, and they couldn’t climb up the boat’s steep, smooth hull. The boat drifted alone and unobserved.

———

Alex could feel the adrenaline building in his gut, setting his skin tingling and the fine hairs on the back of his neck on end. The boat had three levels. The radio was on the top deck.

When Alex and Maritza reached the second level, the squabble between the poker players had fizzled and the four men, all with teeth bleached such an unnatural white that Alex could see them flash from his position crouched by the stairs, were now lounging around a Polynesian-style fire pit and smoking cigars. The guards were standing just outside the glow of the fire, on either side of the revelers. Alex could not see the captain or the remaining two crew members. That meant they were probably upstairs. Not the greatest odds. Alex did not think they were lucky enough that the guards downstairs would not notice a splash from such a height.

Their luck did not even hold out that long. As Alex and Maritza were making their way up the spiral staircase to the third level, one of the crew members abruptly appeared above them. 

“Oye, qué—” he was interrupted by a life preserver to the face, courtesy of Maritza, who promptly heaved him overboard, throwing the ring after him. The landing was so spectacularly loud it might as well have included a cartoon “KER-SPLASH” like in the Batman TV series from the 1960s.

“What happened to subtlety?” Alex hissed.

“Too late for that! Up the stairs!”

And it was indeed too late. The guards, drawn either by the shout or the splash, had sprung into action. Maritza raced up the steps two at a time and dove through the doorway. Alex felt a bullet whiz past his head as he threw himself in after her and slammed the door shut. 

A bullet crashed slammed into the window, but it did not break. The glass appeared to be reinforced. _Thank God for small miracles and paranoid kingpins_ , Alex thought.

Alex scrambled to his feet. Behind him, Maritza twisted the lock closed, broke off the key, and jammed a chair underneath the door handle. The captain and remaining crew member, both large, burly men, had been too surprised to take action immediately. The captain recovered from his shock more quickly and grabbed for the radio.

“Oh no you don’t!” Alex whacked the receiver out of his hand with the water ski. He had known it would come in handy. Two against two for now, but it would not be too long before the guards managed to break down the door. It gave a shudder as the meatier guard threw his full weight into it, but it showed no signs of cracking yet.

Alex swung the ski threateningly as the captain moved to pick up the radio again but was quickly distracted by the remaining crew member who pulled out a long, wicked-looking knife.

“Seeing as you have a knife and I have a ski, would you like to put down the weapons and settle this hand-to-hand like real men…” Alex paused, squinting at the name stitched in cursive into the man’s polo shirt, “…Marty?” he finished hopefully. In response, the other man lunged toward him and slashed at him with the blade. Alex dodged the attack and brought the ski up against the next swing of the knife. He tried to maneuver himself away from the captain and Maritza, who he saw were both crouched into combative stances.

The knife whistled by Alex’s ear, and he brought the ski down on Marty's arm. The wrong arm, unfortunately, but still, it had to hurt. The man snarled but was undeterred and moved to strike again. Alex could still hear the two guards working at the door; one of them seemed to have brought a master key. Soon they would realize that the lock was useless, and then they would probably just try to shoot it off, safety be damned. Alex and Maritza had moments before it was four (two with guns) against two.

Alex heard a strangled yelp, and both he and Marty turned momentarily to see the captain had managed to wrap the cord that connected the receiver to the radio around Maritza’s neck. Before he could move to help her, she had the screwdriver in hand and stabbed backward with such force that both Alex and Marty winced in sympathy. The captain howled and clutched his thigh, which was already darkening with blood. Maritza followed it up quickly with a sharp elbow to the face (the crunch of bone and cartilage was loud enough to pierce the din of the captain’s shrieks and the at the door) and kneed him in the stomach for good measure. She quickly knelt at the radio and began to unscrew it.

Alex’s knife-wielding opponent seemed to have decided that she was the more threatening target and lurched towards her. Alex whacked at him with the ski, only to be parried again by the knife. Using the ski like a quarterstaff, Alex muscled Marty’s knife and arm away, then aimed a vicious kick at his ribs. Marty moved out of the way enough for Alex to only have landed a glancing blow, and Marty ducked below the pressing ski and stabbed at Alex’s chest. Alex just managed to stumble away. Alex thought distantly that this must look like a very odd amateur production of Shakespeare in the Park. He focused on dodging and parrying the increasingly irate Marty’s attacks and tried to maneuver him away from Maritza. The captain did not appear to be much of a threat to Maritza now, as he was still on the floor, whimpering in pain. Once Maritza disabled the radio, they could focus on escape. Alex hoped it was soon; the close quarters, odd weapons, and size discrepancy presented physical and mental challenges, and Alex was starting to get tired. He did not fancy facing the hulking gunman still fiddling with the lock; he was so broad that he filled the entire doorway. On the bright side, the melee upstairs would probably help Roy and Mullet Fingers remain undetected.

Alex twisted away from another wild swing of the knife. He felt a hand wrap around his ankle and looked down at the captain, who had regained enough of his fighting spirit to grab Alex’s leg. Alex tried to shake off the sweaty hand, but between trying to free himself from the man’s surprisingly strong grip and avoiding the whistling knife, he was thrown off balance. Marty took the opportunity to kick Alex into the captain’s seat. His elbow slammed into the console, sending shooting pain down to his fingertips, and the ski fell out of his numb hand. Alex tried to scramble out of the seat, but the captain had rolled under the chair and was now grabbing Alex’s legs. Alex struggled as Marty stalked forward, raising the knife.

Suddenly, Alex's cheek felt a rush of warmth, and a heavy black object wreathed in flames flew past his shoulder and hit Marty square in the face, bounced off, and hit the captain’s forehead. The pressure on Alex’s ankles lessened. He twisted around; Maritza was behind him, standing now, in the pose of an athlete who had just released a discus.

Maritza grabbed Alex’s arm and hauled him to his feet. “Come on!” she said, pulling him past the spot where the radio once sat, now a mess of smoldering wires and plastic. It appeared as though she had managed to rip the entire radio out of the wall with brute strength, set it on fire, and throw it at Marty’s face.

Maritza dragged Alex to the only other escape, an open window on the far side of the cabin. It was a sheer drop into the black water below. “We need to jump!”

It did seem to be the only option. Taking Maritza’s hand, Alex leaped into the open air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _La Virgen Santísima_ is the "Holy Virgin" (aka Mary, mother of Jesus) and is also a common exclamation in Spanish (close to the equivalent of "Good God!" or "Christ Almighty!" in English).
> 
>  _¿Pero qué coño?_ means "what the fuck" and is commonly used in Puerto Rico and other Spanish-speaking countries.
> 
>  _Ay bendito_ is a common Puerto Rican slang phrase that literally means "oh blessed" but in this context means "oh my god."
> 
>  _Señor Positividad_ means "Mr. Positivity"
> 
>  _Oye, qué_ means "Hey, what [cut off by splash]"


	7. The Purrsuit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Action sequence part 2! I didn't mean to make this so mission-y, nor quite this angsty, but here we are. I hope you enjoy it!

A rush of air, and Alex’s feet hit the sea. He let his momentum carry him down into the soft, warm water, sinking away from the bullets that were whizzing by. The sound of gunshots was still unmistakable but pleasantly muted by the water. He opened his eyes; he could see Maritza’s silhouette a few feet away in the murky darkness. She tapped his arm and gestured for him to follow her further downward. Alex did so; he knew he was a strong swimmer, though Maritza seemed more confident moving through the darkened water he felt. He could see the blurred outlines of the kayaks above him, silhouetted against the lights of the yacht. That was their destination. Mullet Fingers and Roy would be waiting for them nearby if they had not escaped already.

Twenty feet below the kayaks, Maritza gestured for Alex to pause. The muffled gunshots and splashes of the bullets landing in the water had lessened in frequency and proximity, but someone might have spotted the kayaks hidden in the cover of the boat’s looming shadow. Slowly, Maritza began to push upward and Alex with her. It was a good thing, too; Alex’s chest was starting to hurt a little from going this long without breathing. They were very near the kayaks now.

Alex could almost reach out and touch the underside of the boats when there was a loud _crack_ , and a cloud of shattered plastic shrapnel filled the water above his head. Alex viciously repressed the urge to gasp. He felt an urgent tugging on his arm and turned as Maritza frantically gestured for him to move away.

With the powerful strokes of a champion swimmer, Maritza began to swim away from the boat as fast as she could, checking behind herself periodically to make sure Alex was still keeping up. He was, but he could feel the strain of the lack of oxygen in his burning lungs and shoulders. Maritza kept swimming determinedly away, away from the boat and the lights and the poorly-aimed gunshots that would still do plenty of damage if there were enough of them.

Alex could feel his calves beginning to go numb, which was somehow worse than the fiery pain of the lactic acid buildup. Even in the dark, he could tell his vision was getting spotty. He was vividly reminded of his near-drowning at the palazzo in Venice, though at least this time there was no locked door, only the promise of bullets if he resurfaced too quickly. He could not, he would not let himself resurface and breathe until Maritza had deemed it safe for both of them. He wouldn’t…

A moment of blackness and Alex realized that he’d released his final breath and his lungs were filling with water. He gasped involuntarily, which was a mistake as there was nothing but more water to inhale. He kicked his legs in a panicked bid for the surface, but it felt like he was pushing himself further down. His body felt like it was on tingling fire inside and out. Then, he felt a band of warmth around his torso. Strong, lean arms wrapped around his chest, and a moment later, his head had broken through the surface, and as he coughed up two lungfuls of water, he realized he could breathe again.

As his coughing subsided, Alex realized that someone else was still holding on to him. Soothing fingers were stroking his hair, and that someone was whispering comforting words in Spanish. Maritza. 

When it was clear that Alex was conscious enough to tread water on his own power, she released him. His arms and legs were still a mix of sore and disconcertingly numb, but he managed to face her. “How…?”

“Sponge diving. Tarpon Springs. I learned the traditional way, no oxygen supply.” She rolled her shoulders. “It comes in handy when I’m working.”

Alex nodded. His head hurt, too, but every second he spent breathing the night air lessened the discomfort. 

The relief of no longer drowning was interrupted by an unmistakable popping sound that made Alex’s chest constrict. Gunshots. They weren’t aimed at them, though; no, the shots were coming from the boat and directed away. Alex could hear shouts. A motor revved. Alex prayed that the gun-wielding security guards hadn’t gotten their hands on one of the jet skis. 

Alex’s fears were assuaged when he saw a familiar blonde head hunched over a jet ski, a dark-haired figure clinging to his back. More shots and splashes in the water. Alex wasn’t sure whether to call out, but it didn’t matter because Mullet Fingers appeared to be looking for them. He spotted Alex and Maritza a moment later and sped over.

“This won’t hold all of us for long. We let the other one drift.” He nodded at a black dot bobbing in the distance. “I’ll bring you to it. We need to get to shore now.” His voice was uncharacteristically urgent.

Alex and Maritza obediently clung to the sides of the jet ski and Mullet Fingers squeezed the accelerator. Alex’s arms protested at the effort of holding on as the jet ski bounced through the water. 

“Why? What’s going on?” Maritza asked. She was in better shape to talk than Alex was right then. Maritza looked more closely at the two riders. “Oh, Roy.” Alex looked and didn’t know how he could have missed it. Roy’s shirt and trousers were a mess of blood, and even in the dim moonlight, Alex could see that his skin was unnaturally pale. The older boy smiled weakly.

“It’s all good, I’ll be fine. Just gotta get to somewhere drier. And warmer.” He gave a weak thumbs-up, then shuddered.

Alex exchanged a look with Maritza. She looked as grim as he felt. It didn’t look as though the femoral artery or another major blood vessel had been hit. If it had, Roy would have been dead already. As it was, he was still losing a lot of blood. Mullet Fingers didn’t seem to be able to say anything, and Alex couldn’t blame him. Instead, he focused on steering the jet ski towards Alex and Maritza’s transport. 

As they cut through the water, Alex notice Roy tug weakly at Maritza’s shoulder and nod towards Mullet Fingers, still focusing intently on steering the jet ski. She turned towards him, and he began speaking to her in hushed Spanish. Some of it was too quiet for Alex to catch, but it seemed like the gist of it was “keep him together, he’s a moron and he’ll blame himself.” Maritza gave a wordless nod. 

Alex felt a deep, crushing pit of guilt in his stomach. He was equally to blame for this, if not more so than was Mullet Fingers. He had decided it was a good idea to open the crates, and he was the one who had insisted on disabling the boat. They could have stolen the jet skis and motorboat and made their way to the safety of the trees before anyone realized something was amiss. All of this was because of his own damn curiosity and his vehement desire to avoid interacting with the world’s intelligence agencies any more than was absolutely necessary.

A short time later, Alex and Maritza were dropped off at the second jet ski, and Mullet Fingers sped off far more quickly to shore. Maritza and Alex were clambering on when they heard the sound of yet another distant motor. Alex glanced back and watched as the small motorboat begin to pull away from the larger yacht. Maritza had seen it too; her expression tightened, and she pressed down on the accelerator, rushing off after Roy and Mullet Fingers. The jet skis were faster than the boat, but on foot, with Roy’s as-yet-unassessed injury, Alex knew they’d be caught quickly.

When they pulled up to the beach from where they’d first launched, Mullet Fingers had already abandoned his craft and carried Roy into the hidden glade where they had concealed their belongings. _He must have sprinted_ , Alex thought distantly. He scrambled off of the back of the jet ski and waded the rest of the way to shore, stumbling a little from his time on the water and his recent near-drowning. He and Maritza dashed through the trees to their campsite. 

When they reached the clearing, they could see Roy lying on one of the towels, pale and still. As he got closer, Alex could see Roy’s chest rising and falling shallowly. He was lit by a flashlight that Mullet Fingers held clenched between his teeth. In the dim light, Alex could see that Roy’s once-green shirt was now a wet, rusty red. Mullet Fingers had torn open the first aid kit with one hand and was holding pressure on Roy’s wound with another. Supplies were already strewn about the sandy forest floor. He finally found what he was looking for and pressed a wad of gauze firmly into Roy’s side with his already bloody hand and gently brushed the wet curls from Roy’s forehead with the other. He spit out the flashlight and finally looked up at Alex and Maritza. His expression of intense concentration had faded into shock and exhaustion.

“He’s going to be fine,” he said, eyes wide, voice hoarse, never easing the bruising pressure of the hand pressed to Roy’s side. “When I got shot, he took care of me. I was fine.” His voice cracked a little. “It’s my fault. I was taking too long on the engine, and I wasn’t paying enough attention… But I’m taking care of him now. He’ll be fine,” he repeated, almost angrily now.

Alex picked up the flashlight and turned off the telltale beam. He and Maritza tucked more towels around Roy. “He will be,” Maritza promised. “He’s a tough one. You’re doing great. Just keep pressure on that. Santi will be here any minute now.”

Mullet Fingers nodded mutely and looked back at Roy.

“The men from the yacht took the other boat,” Maritza said gently. “They’ll be here soon.”

Mullet Fingers nodded dully. “I can’t leave. Not without him.” This ended in a whisper.

“No,” Maritza agreed. “You’re going to stay here. Alex and I will take the jet skis west and south. We’ll lead them into the swamp. We know the terrain. We’ll be fine.”

Alex wasn’t so sure about the “we know the terrain” part, but it was a far more attractive alternative than leaving Roy like the sitting duck that he was. Or sitting helplessly as he bled out.

Maritza pressed the phone into Mullet Fingers’ free hand. “Take this. Once we leave, call Santi, tell him about Roy and where we’ve gone. I turned on the GPS tracker already. He’ll find you.” Mullet Fingers nodded again. Alex and Maritza turned and disappeared back into the underbrush.

When Alex and Maritza got back to the beach and the jet skis, their pursuers had not yet arrived, though they were much closer. The three men silhouetted against the water—two guards and Marty, if the metallic silver flash by his waist was any indicator—appeared to be testing the limits of the small boat’s capacity. The bow was nearly dipping into the water under their collective weight. That would buy them some time. Alex would have laughed if he was not struggling to push the heavy jet ski back into the water. The physical punishment of the fight on the boat and his self-inflicted asphyxiation immediately thereafter was taking its toll. Alex hoped the nearly moonless night would conceal the fact that all four saboteurs were not fleeing on the jet skis. 

Maritza climbed on one machine and took off, Alex close behind her. He was grateful for her knowledge of this place and that he would not have to muck through it on his own for once; he would have been utterly lost, and even the familiar places looked alien at night. Maritza seemed to know exactly where she was taking them, weaving through the grass and into the shelter of the mangroves farther inland.

Alex had glanced behind them a few times to check if the men had given up pursuit. They had not. He felt both relieved and irritated at that. Just once, could the people trying to kill him decide he wasn’t worth the trouble and wait patiently for the authorities to collect them? They would be facing fewer charges, and Alex would be able to catch his breath that way. It was a win-win situation if you looked at it from the right perspective. 

It was a good thing the men were still far behind and in a boat that was far too small to carry them anywhere quickly because Alex could feel his own engine straining beneath him. Neither jet ski had been manufactured to carry two grown adults any significant distance, let alone four. They would need to find somewhere to get off soon. 

Abruptly, Maritza swerved, pushing deeper into the trees. Alex followed. She cut her engine just as Alex’s gave a feeble final wheeze and died. They drifted forward for a few more seconds on the residual momentum, floating further beneath the trees. Then, Maritza clambered onto the handlebars and rose to her full height, wobbling precariously. She reached up, grabbed a branch from an overhanging tree, and swung herself onto the dry land of the hammock to which they had drifted. Alex followed suit, gritting his teeth against the strain on his shoulders. He might have pulled a muscle. At least he was taller than her, so he could stand on his seat and not attempt the balancing act on the handlebars.

On land, they walked as softly as they could through the ferns and over dead leaves, always with an eye towards the inlet from which they had come. Alex cursed the patches of dense underbrush with every audible step. They made their way through the trees until they were about thirty meters away from their abandoned crafts. Alex could still see the little estuary where the riderless jet skis now bobbed with the gentle waves. From here, they were reasonably well concealed.

The men arrived a moment later, their little boat’s engine emitting acrid smoke and a series of unhealthy sputters. After a brief, inaudible conversation, the security guard who had not been at the door while Maritza was disabling the radio—he must have been the one who shot Roy—and Marty got out, while the other security guard stayed behind, presumably to catch Maritza and Alex if they doubled back. Marty and the other security guard began to push through the underbrush.

“Let’s move,” breathed Maritza. She and Alex slowly backed further into the trees. It was more difficult than it should have been; Alex’s legs were cramped from the awkward position he had been holding and sore from his airless swim, his chest and head still hurt, and he was soaking wet from his plunge in the sea. Despite the warmth of the night, the water clinging to his clothes and hair made Alex shiver. He was doing his best to stop his shoes from squelching in the undergrowth and briefly considered taking a leaf from Mullet Fingers’ book and removing them entirely, before reasoning that impaling his foot on some spiky plant or being bitten by a venomous snake would make him a far easier target than would waterlogged shoes.

The relative silence of the trek through the dark undergrowth would have been impossible for Alex on his own. Maritza seemed to possess a sixth sense for avoiding the worst of the thick roots and crackling leaves that clogged their path, and none of the more aggressive or noisy wildlife showed interest in their slow, winding creep through the swamp. The only sounds were the rustling wind, the gentle wavelets lapping the shore, and the rhythmic buzzing of crickets and frogs. A few times, the hair on the back of his neck stood up, and Alex felt certain he was being watched, but there was no movement or sound to signal that anything was amiss.

Alex began to hear a faint mechanical humming. “Mari—” she held up a hand and nodded, listening for a moment.

“It’s not coming from them. I think it might be the Coast Guard. It’s about that time.” The words were barely more than a breath, but Alex could hear a thin ribbon of relief curling through the tension.

“Plan?” He kept his voice as low as possible.

“The jet skis would be good, but they’re almost out of fuel and they’re guarded. We could wait it out, but the sun will be up soon and they can shoot us much easier during the day.” 

“Which might happen anyway cause this hammock is tiny,” Alex supplied.

“Yeah. Which means we need to get off of this and head farther inland, towards camp.”

“If we’re headed there, they might be too, especially—” suddenly, they heard the telltale drone of a helicopter, “—if that happens,” Alex finished. 

The helicopter approached and Alex could see a spotlight hanging underneath, sweeping over the shore and the swamp. For a few disorienting seconds, the trees flashed white, and as Alex’s eyes adjusted, he could see a tall, broad figure a mere ten meters away. The figure—a man—was clearly holding a gun. And of course, he was looking right at Alex and Maritza. Any lingering confusion over his purpose in the swamp was resolved when he simultaneously raised his gun and bellowed “over here, I found ‘em!” at the top of his lungs.

Alex and Maritza were already running when he fired the first shot. The man (the friend-shooting security guard, not the knife-wielding Marty) gave chase in a display of disappointingly impressive aerobic fitness. Soon after Goon One had begun running noisily after them, there was a nearby crashing and Marty burst forth, hurtling pell-mell towards Alex. It took Alex a few more seconds to deduce how he was able to see Marty, and he realized with some dismay that the helicopter had noticed their chase and was now following them, spotlight cutting through the thick, smoky darkness of the early-morning Everglades.

_Stop helping them find us already, you fucking morons,_ he thought (his chest was starting to hurt from the running and he was not about to announce his position by saying it out loud. He would save it for when they reached safety and he had time to deliver an appropriate tirade to their presumptive rescuers, assuming they did not get him killed first.) Maritza had no such sense of self-preservation, or her lung capacity was much greater than Alex’s because the abuse she was hurling at the helicopter and their pursuers was making Alex’s hair stand on end.

All thoughts of stealth abandoned, Alex and Maritza tore through a thick patch of bushes, crushing the branches and leaves that clung to them with flailing arms and stomping feet. It was a good thing that Roy was not there to see the abuse being inflicted on the plants. Alex offered a silent apology to Roy and whichever forest spirits might be watching as he smashed through a flowering shrub. 

They charged into a clearing, at the edge of which lay a murky, root-filled canal canopied in mangroves. It was the only obstacle that separated them from the next hammock. Without stopping, Maritza leaped into the air, grabbed ahold of a loose branch, and swung to another tree limb that she used as a trampoline to propel her onto the next bank. Alex was reaching for a branch when there was a heavy _CRACK_ and bark rained down on Alex’s outstretched fingers. Marty and trigger-happy had reached the clearing, and the security guard had shot and disintegrated the branch above Alex’s hand. Excellent marksmanship had Alex not suspected that the man had been aiming for his head. Another better-aimed shot sent Alex tripping across the roots, still trapped on the goon-filled shore. He could see Maritza standing frozen where she had landed, but it was over twenty feet away. Too far for him to jump, even with a running start.

“ALEX!” she screamed. This earned her a prompt shot from Marty ( _good thing he didn’t have that on the boat,_ Alex thought) which she was able to dodge, but she still did not move from the bank. “ALEX!”

“RUN!” he shouted back, still scrambling over the twisted tree roots. She looked like she was about to argue back when Alex heard a splash and turned to see that security goon had taken the plunge into the trough and was maintaining sloppy pursuit. “¡CORRE, BOBA!” he repeated, exasperated, hoping Spanish would get through to her where English did not. It appeared to work and Maritza snapped back into action, promptly turning and disappearing into the trees.

Alex ran and ran. He barely noticed the sharp pains from when the trees and rocks banged his toes and shins, or where the spinier plants tore at his sunburnt skin. His chest was still tight and his limbs were exhausted, and he had the odd dual sensation of being uncomfortably hot from the strenuous exercise while shivering from his sodden, heat-sapping clothes. It was made tolerable only by the second surge of adrenaline that had kicked in around the time when the helicopter shined its spotlight on the gun-wielding security guard. 

It was darker now. The helicopter’s bright spotlight had not followed them, either choosing to focus on Maritza or realizing that it was helping the guys waving guns more than the two people frantically running away. Unlike the earlier trek through the wetlands, Alex could still see. Dawn was coming, it seemed; on the eastern horizon, he could spot watery gray light through the tangled trees.

Eventually, Alex realized that the only footsteps he could hear were his own. He looked around carefully and slowed. The lactic acid buildup and exhaustion were becoming unbearable, and the thick undergrowth and his own heavy breathing did not do wonders for remaining undetected. He walked now, trying to control his breathing and the loudness of his tread. His and the natural sounds of the Everglades stretching before dawn were the only things he could hear. 

Alex came to a break in the trees. Another clearing. He looked around carefully. Nothing. Alex cautiously stepped through.

And mentally cursed himself when he saw a grinning Marty emerge from the trees at the far end, red-faced and chest heaving but aiming his gun at Alex’s chest without the slightest tremor. The gleaming knife was clutched in the other hand.

“Thought you could escape me, you little bastard?” Marty wheezed. “You and me got some unfinished business to settle.”

“You know the DEA, the Coast Guard, the CIA… you know they’re all here, right?” said Alex. He tried to keep his voice steady, but breathing was very painful at the moment.

“I could care less. They decided to go chasing after your friend. They won’t find us any time soon,” Marty informed him smugly. “I have a whole lot of swamp to bury you in, and some very powerful friends. Doesn’t matter what I do to you, ain’t nobody that can do shit to me.”

“That’s certainly true for whoever tried to teach you grammar,” Alex muttered.

Marty twirled his knife around. “Pretty stupid thing to say for someone that’s too close for me to miss.”

“And there it is again. At this point people threatening me tend to tell me all the horrible things they’re planning to do to me,” added Alex. “I’m usually bored out of my skull, but for the sake of tradition, let’s hear it.”

Marty spun his knife again. He seemed to be deep in thought. “I was thinking I’d just shoot you, but I can probably get a leg or a foot from here. Mac here can do the rest.” He nodded to the knife.

“Mac? Like the song?”

Marty grinned evilly. “Bingo, dead-o.”

Alex winced at the terrible attempt at word humor. “I might’ve gone with ‘dead on’ or ‘you’re a sharp one’ or ‘you’re dying today no matter how you slice it’ or something like that, but whatever sharpens your machete. Oh, would listen to that, I did it without even trying. Practice makes perfect,” Alex said encouragingly.

Marty’s expression flickered from bemused to enraged. “Alright, how about this, kid. I have a gun and a knife and a bunch of hungry gators out there that’ll tear your body to pieces by the time I hit Tampa. I will get away, and you will die in agony. How’s that for a threat?”

“That was perfectly elocuted.”

Marty stalked towards Alex, who had been scanning the cleaning and the trees beyond for any sort of escape during the exchange. Marty, despite his terrible grammar and harmless-sounding name and inelegant ideas for torture, was all but guaranteed to follow through on his threats. As Alex backed up, he continued to look around. There was nothing. There was nobody. Just like always, he was all alone, about to die, and this time, he couldn’t even blame MI6 or the CIA or ASIS for it. He would have to fight his way out, and that was assuming he managed to not get shot or stabbed in anything important. And given his exhaustion, he wouldn’t last long. Marty could probably sit on him and win. _Fuck._

The end came fast, faster than anything Alex could imagine, faster than Mullet Fingers darting his hand into the water to capture his slippery little ichthyic namesake. More unexpectedly, the end was not a bullet or a knife or a hungry crocodile. And most surprisingly of all, the end was not even for Alex. 

A large mass came flying from above, knocking Alex over with a sweep of its heavy tail as it landed right on Marty’s chest. Alex had a moment to see the sneer morph into a terrified gasp before the knife and gun were batted out of Marty’s hands with the swipe of a massive paw. Marty began to shriek as he tried to push the beast off of him, but it was incredibly agile and wrapped itself around him before sinking its massive teeth into Marty’s denim-clad posterior. Marty howled and toppled over, and the wild—which Alex could now see was a Florida panther—determinedly held on.

Alex rose shakily from his incredibly vulnerable position on the ground. Adrenaline, exhaustion, fear, and confusion had finally won and his body was trembling uncontrollably. He gingerly picked up Marty’s fallen gun and tossed it into a nearby bromeliad. The cat, which had not yet let go of Marty’s meaty haunch, smacked the man’s hand with its tail as it inched toward Mac the knife. Alex slowly, carefully walked over, taking care not to spook his feline rescuer, and stuck the knife in his own sodden pocket. He then took a few steps back.

From this vantage point, Alex could take in the awe-inspiring sight of the big cat. Its coat was a smooth tan with faded spots, except for the creamy white belly and the tufts of black that stuck up from its sleek ears. The sun must have risen because Alex could see that its eyes were a pale, piercing blue.

The panther was pure, majestic hunter, but Alex did not feel the same bone-deep fear he had when confronting other predators, like McCain’s crocodiles or Yassen Gregorovich. Alex did not even feel frightened. Instead, he felt captivated.

With one final shake, the panther released Marty, who remained curled on the ground where he whimpered pathetically and clutched his punctured bottom. The cat stepped delicately over the man’s blubbering form and padded over to Alex, its steps soundless. The panther stopped right in front of Alex and he didn’t breathe as it stopped inches from him. It took a tiny step closer. Closer still. The panther’s jaw opened wide… and licked the side of Alex’s hand with a rough pink tongue. 

After a moment or two during which Alex remained frozen in place, the panther looked up at him with what appeared to be mild indignation and butted his hand with its large head. Not knowing what possessed him to do so, Alex knelt, reached a tentative hand, and gently patted the panther’s muscular flank. His shaking lessened. He felt calmer.

The panther purred a little ( _who knew panthers purred?_ ) and knocked Alex’s face with its nose before gently nuzzling his cheek. He could not help it. He laughed. Suddenly, the cat’s black-tipped ears rose and its head shot up. A moment later, Alex could hear voices, faint but coming closer. The panther gave Alex one last nudge on his shoulder before loping off into the trees. It spared Alex one final look. Its eyes were too intelligent to belong to any normal cat. Before Alex could say anything— _what was he going to do, ask a puma that was potentially a shape-shifting forest guardian to tea?_ —the panther disappeared into the undergrowth.

Alex was still sitting on the ground when the search team arrived, headed by the great detective David Delinko himself.

“Alex!” Delinko knelt by him, sounded pleased and relieved. “Oh geez,” he said a moment later when he spotted Marty, still clutching his perforated butt cheek and bleating in pain a few meters away. “What happened here?”

Alex grinned. He felt better than he had in hours. “I suppose it could be described as a bit of _Deus ex catchina_ … What?” he said, looking at the unamused face of Santiago Lobos, who had just appeared at the shoulder of Detective Delinko. “I’m tired. I know it’s not my best work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tarpon Springs is a city near Tampa, Florida that was settled by Greeks from the islands of Kalymnos, Symi, and Halki in the Dodecanese. At the time sponge diving was one of the largest and oldest industries on many of these islands and the immigrants brought the knowledge of novel sponge-diving techniques with them when they immigrated to the United States. Traditionally, free-diving (which involves holding one's breath without the use of breathing apparatus) is used and divers may collect sponges 30 meters below the surface and hold their breaths for five minutes. These traditional sponge-diving techniques are still used today in Tarpon Springs and some of the Greek Islands. This may or may not tie into an idea I had for a sequel work.
> 
> _¡CORRE, BOBA!_ means "RUN, DUMMY!"
> 
> No, the title is not a typo. This work has been tragically pun-light.


	8. Otra Noche en Miami

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning, there are some (non-graphic) descriptions of dead birds here.
> 
> Sorry for the gap, I ended up re-writing this chapter and re-structuring the rest. This is the last chapter set in Florida, after this we'll be caught up with the beginning!

The sun was just rising above the Eastern Seaboard when Detective David Delinko of the Coconut Cove Police Department, amid a search for the final straggler from the drug-running party yacht and one teenager who was somehow connected to both the CIA and DEA despite being British, heard a rustling in some nearby trees and what sounded like a low laugh. He was relieved to discover Alex Rider, sitting on the ground and soaking wet but generally looking no worse for the wear, and an enforcer for one of the biggest cartels east of the Mississippi lying on the ground a few feet away and clutching several painful-looking bite marks on his bottom.

Immediately after being discovered in the clearing by Detective Delinko and Santiago Lobos, Alex was bundled into a car and brought straight to the nearest visitors center, which had been temporarily seized for the purposes of Alex’s interrogation. Debrief.

After slamming the car door shut, Alex turned to Santiago. “Where’s Roy? How is he?”

Santiago’s fingers drummed the steering wheel. “They airlifted him to Miami. He’s in surgery now.” It didn’t escape Alex’s attention that Lobos had neglected to mention _how_ Roy was doing. Alex bit his lip and tried to focus on how uncomfortable his clothes felt, which were stiffening with salt and mud as they dried. It didn’t work as well as he had hoped. After a few moments of silence, the DEA agent reached out and squeezed Alex’s shoulder briefly. “You guys did everything right. He was still breathing when he got to the hospital. It’ll be hours before we know anything, and Maritza will call as soon as there’s news.” The knot in Alex’s chest refused to loosen, but he nodded anyway. That would have to do for now. Santiago fiddled with the radio until synth beats and Bad Bunny’s trademark mournful baritone filled the car. Lobos a firm believer in the therapeutic effects of reggaetón.

Twenty minutes later, they pulled into the parking lot of the visitor center. Out of courtesy for Alex’s comfort or concerns about personal hygiene, Alex had been permitted to exchange his sodden, soiled clothes for ones from the visitor center’s small gift shop. The neon orange and pink Hawaiian print shorts clashed horribly with the oversized maroon sweatshirt that read “BITE ME!” on the back and had an image of an alligator printed on the front. Alex looked at himself ruefully in the blurry bathroom mirror. At least they were clean

He was startled when he heard the click of a camera. He turned; Santiago Lobos was gleefully taking photos with his phone. Alex raised his eyebrows.

“Maritza demanded proof of life. Who am I to refuse my own sister? Turn to the left.”

Alex snorted and complied, inspecting his reflection again. The ensemble was breathtakingly offensive to the eye. Alex considered breaking his rule of never exchanging his real contact information with members of an agency that tried to recruit him; Jack and Tom would get a laugh out of the photos. He probably would, once he was safely back in London.

When Alex had procrastinated for as long as possible—he really didn’t want to have to explain what he and his friends had been doing on the boat in the first place—he and Santi (all business now except for the occasional snicker when he glanced anew at Alex’s clothes) made their way to the ranger’s break room that was being used for the debriefing.

Liu and Benegas had insisted on carrying out the debrief themselves. They had driven all the way from Miami to do so. Both were sitting at a gray coffee-stained table when Alex walked in. They looked as though they had just finished an argument; Liu must have won because he was looking uncharacteristically cheerful. When the DEA man glanced up upon hearing Alex and Santiago Lobos enter the room, his smirk broadened to a full-on grin. He looked like the cat that ate the canary. Benegas looked like he was trying to pass a kidney stone.

Liu’s good humor persisted throughout the next few hours of interrogation. Apparently, the raid on Ramos’s compound had gone well, and the capture of the boats that were key to the drug distribution operation led by one of the DEA’s rising stars had painted the agency in a very positive light. He didn’t even question Alex’s explanation of the chain of events leading to the early-morning chase. Instead, he steered the conversation away from a few of the less benign topics that would almost certainly land Alex, Martiza, Roy, and Mullet Fingers in trouble. Though Santiago Lobos was standing a little behind Alex, Alex occasionally detected a minute nod or headshake out of the corner of his eye when Liu was looking at Lobos and Benegas was not. Alex knew that Lobos wanted to keep Maritza and her friends as far away from the CIA and its machinations as possible. He got the sense that Lobos and Liu had danced this dance before, Lobos glossing over certain Maritza-related details and the uptight Liu displaying a bit more flexibility than Alex had realized he was capable of.

Benegas, on the other hand, demanded Alex repeat the story, looking more and more frustrated with each new detail he dragged out of Alex.

“Please explain to me again what you and your friends were doing anywhere near Ramos’s yacht.”

“We decided to go for a nighttime paddle! It’s allowed.”

“What possessed you to get _on_ the boat?”

“We heard suspicious activity, as I’ve told you,” Alex said patiently. He had, three times now.

“Fine, but you didn’t answer why you were close enough to hear anything.”

“We were caught by a sudden strong current. Nature is a powerful and mysterious force.”

———

“Our cleanup crew found evidence of a blockage in the sewage tubes.”

“Oh?” replied Alex, the picture of innocence.

“Something that you did not think to mention.”

“I think a plumber might be the person to work that out, not me. Have you tried Craigslist?”

A purple vein in Benegas’s forehead was throbbing. “Blockage that could only have occurred if someone deliberately blocked the end with epoxy and expanding foam within the past twelve hours. Can you explain how that happened?”

“Oh. That. Yes! Last night was so crazy, I forgot. We did that.”

“And _why_ did you do that?”

“To prevent waste from getting out?” As if it were the most obvious thing in the world, and Benegas was an imbecile for asking such a question. Benegas didn’t take too kindly to Alex’s tolerant tone.

“I _gathered_ that, but why did you think it needed to be done?”

Alex puffed up indignantly. “Well, you know what people throw in toilets and the trash. What if they were trying to flush away important proof of their illegal dealings? It would sink to the bottom of the ocean, and I couldn’t possibly let that happen!”

“Much as I admire your dedication to preserving evidence, what I mean to say is, once you realized what the boats were for, why did you prioritize that over, say, disabling the engine or getting away? Whoever was responsible did a much more thorough job on that than on the motor or the radio.”

“If I may,” Liu interjected, “it could be that given the layout of the boat, it was more convenient and easier to accomplish undetected? The motor and the radio are also far more obvious targets, and they would have been noticed much sooner. Securing the evidence first was an excellent move,” he said approvingly.

Benegas gave Liu a ferocious glare, which he ignored.

“Yes,” Alex nodded vigorously. “Yes, that’s exactly how it happened. Well done, Agent Liu, you understand the situation perfectly.”

“Why did Maritza not mention any of this beforehand?” asked Benegas, exasperated.

“Shock?” Alex suggested. “She’s very emotional, I’m sure this was all very traumatic for her.” Perhaps playing to what Alex hoped was a deep well of chauvinism might help.

“I doubt it. We have a video from one of the guests of her chucking a flaming radio at your friend Marty’s head with audio of her cackling like the Wicked Witch of the West.”

“Wonderful show, did you know I played the Tin Man in my school’s production of the _Wizard of Oz_ last term? You know, you would’ve made a good Scarecr—”

“ _How is this relevant, Rider?_ ”

“Sorry, I get excited about musical theater. But I digress. The guests were highly intoxicated,” Alex pointed out. “I don’t think that their testimonies to her mental state would be admissible in any court.”

“There were enough drugs in their systems to kill a herd of buffalo, yes.

“They’re sleeping it off now in the county jail,” added Liu. “Turns out two of them are wanted for insider trading. The FBI is picking them up later.”

“ _Thank you, Liu,_ but the fact remains, an iPhone can’t get high off cocaine.” Clearly, Maritza’s psychological well-being was too obviously robust to convince Benegas. Time to try a different track, evidently.

“Oh well, you know Maritza. She’s a bit… scatterbrained,” Alex said.

“She isn’t very bright,” Lobos added, shaking his head solemnly. 

“She has a Ph.D. in marine biology and over a dozen publications in _Science_ and _Nature_!” Benegas exclaimed disbelievingly.

“Oh, do you keep up with the literature?” Alex jumped in enthusiastically. “Did you see that one study about the rats and the artificial sweeteners…”

Benegas let his head fall into his hands.

———

A few hours and the interrogation—pardon, “debrief”—was at last over. Alex had been asked to repeat the same story ad nauseam and had not a single one of his questions answered. He was relieved and a bit annoyed when he was finally permitted to go to the University of Miami Hospital.

Stepping outside into the muggy air, so much hotter than when he’d first entered the visitors center was far preferable to spending another minute with an increasingly irate Benegas. Alex stretched and looked over at Santiago Lobos. “So I’m done here.”

Lobos smiled and reached out to tousle Alex’s hair. “Sí mijo, totally done.”

“And I don’t have to stay and do stuff with the DEA or CIA or anything.”

“Nope. They’re sending you home Saturday night, as promised. Bought the tickets and everything. You’re going home.”

Alex nodded. Breathed a little easier. He felt relief, relief that he wouldn’t be roped into picking up the pieces of some bungled investigation or else whisked off on some surprise mission.

Santiago Lobos led him to the same beaten-up car he had taken to the visitors center, and they began the drive to the University of Miami Hospital. Liu had come out to see them off and was cheerily waving them goodbye as they pulled out of the parking lot; Alex suspected that Benegas might still be gently banging his head against the break room table. 

Santiago called Maritza en route. They spoke in rapid Puerto Rican Spanish so accented and slang-laden that Alex could only follow snippets of the conversation. After nodding a few times, Santiago passed the phone to Alex.

Maritza’s voice came flowing out of the speaker, a mixture of worry and relief. “Alejo nene, ¿qué te pasó? They told us you were okay, but nothing else. You worried us!”

“I’m fine, don’t worry. How’s Roy?” This was the question that had been gnawing at his insides throughout the debrief. Santiago Lobos knew his sister and her trouble-prone companions too well to assume that the night would end with everyone unscathed, and the emergency medical team he had wisely brought with him was able to stabilize Roy while he was airlifted to the hospital. He had lost a substantial amount of blood and sustained significant damage to his abdominal and hip muscles, pelvis, and ribs but was still breathing when he was wheeled into surgery.

“Still operating. Polo is with me in the waiting room. They tried to get him to change into something that isn’t covered in blood, but it’s an uphill battle.”

“How is he?”

“Worried. Won’t sit down. Blaming himself.” 

Alex laughed hollowly. “Exactly what Roy said he’d do.”

Alex could hear a tight smile in Maritza’s voice. “Exactamente, nene.” There was a pause, and Alex heard muffled voices in the background.

“Alejo, the doctor just came in and my phone’s about to die. I’m going to go now, okay? Nos vemos ahorita.” She hung up.

“How much longer?” Alex asked Santiago Lobos. The man patted his shoulder comfortingly.

“Soon, kid, soon.”

———

When Alex and Santiago walked into the waiting room forty minutes later, the only people present were Maritza and a masked physician in green scrubs. Maritza looked up when she heard the slide of the doors and waved Alex over. She seemed relaxed; certainly not the look of a person who had just heard that their friend died or was only being kept alive by machines. It couldn’t have been too bad, then. Alex was almost immediately distracted from that tentative sense of hope by the bandage wound around Maritza’s forearm.

“What happened to you?”

Maritza looked down. “Oh, this?” She waved her gauze-wrapped arm in the air. “When we got split up, that idiot kept chasing me, so I knocked him out with a cactus. Got an armful of prickers. Better than in my face though, which he now knows.”

Santiago clapped his sister on the back fondly. “And I’m so proud of you, hermanita.”

“And Roy?” Alex dared to ask.

The physician spoke up then. “It was touch-and-go for a while, and he went into shock from the blood loss and fractures. He is quite a fighter, though, and pulled through just fine. He’s going to be okay. He got out of surgery a while ago. He’s still a little out of it, but his boyfriend is with him.”

Maritza started giggling. “He kept asking for his ‘hot blonde boyfriend with the pretty eyes.’”

“Yes, he was adamant that he be there,” the doctor added, dark eyes crinkling.

“I have video,” Maritza added.

“You are incorrigible,” Santiago said shaking his head, but he was laughing. This was good. Joking was good. Joking meant that it wasn’t so bad after all. Or that it was absolutely terrible and they were trying to find a good way to soften the blow.

“When can we see him?” asked Alex.

“You can poke your head in now. He’s probably asleep though. We gave him the good stuff.” The doctor led the way through a set of doors and down a hallway painted a calming shade of lavender. She stopped in front of Roy’s door where the name “Eberhardt, R” had been crossed out in sharpie and replaced with the word “Tex” for some reason. Fingers to her masked lips, the doctor slowly pushed the door open. Alex and the Lobos siblings peeked inside.

Through the half-open door, Alex could see that he was indeed asleep. Electrodes connected his torso to various machines, a pulse oximeter was clipped to his finger, and an IV drip was inserted at his elbow. It looked bad, but in Alex’s extensive experience with hospitals and injuries, it appeared as though the beeping machines were only there to monitor his health, not accommodate for missing vital functions. That was a good sign. 

As Alex peeked further around the door, he caught sight of Mullet Fingers. Someone must have persuaded the boy to shower and change out of his waterlogged, blood-stained clothes after all, as he was now clad in a set of baby-blue surgical scrubs. He was also asleep. He had ignored the uncomfortable-looking visitor’s chair completely in favor of crawling into the hospital bed with Roy. He lay on his side, one hand resting gently on Roy’s bandaged abdomen, the other twisted in his loose dark curls, which splayed over the hospital pillow. His face wore a small smile. Alex and the Lobos siblings quietly closed the door. Alex had all the reassurance he needed about Roy’s condition, and he wasn’t about to interrupt their first peaceful moment in days. They could talk later.

———

Alex spent the rest of the day at the hospital. Eventually, Roy woke up, and though he was still woozy from medications and somewhat pale, he was in his usual calm good humor. His memory of the previous night ended with him clinging to his boyfriend’s back on the jet ski about halfway to shore. He demanded every detail of the chase and Maritza, Alex, and Santiago enthusiastically reenacted it (with some dramatic license). Now that he was dry and safe from angry drug traffickers and conniving federal agents, Alex could see the humor in it. Roy laughed (and then groaned, clutching his bandaged side) at the part when Maritza hit the man in the face with a fallen cactus, knocking him out cold (it was indeed the guard who had shot Roy, which was doubly satisfying) and lit up with excitement when Alex described his feline rescuer. Mullet Fingers was even more delighted with Alex, turning to Roy and saying “ _See?!?_ I _told_ you!” In his excitement (and desire to not further injure Roy), Mullet Fingers whacked Santiago Lobos with an extra pillow he had pilfered from a nearby linen closet.

As it began to darken Alex started to feel the lack of sleep. Maritza Lobos noticed his first poorly-concealed yawn. “Alejo, te ves como un zombi. Necesitas dormir, mi amor.” She shrugged off his weak protests that he was not a child who needed an adult to set his bedtime and steered him out of the hospital to Santiago Lobos’s apartment in Little Havana. Maritza glared at Alex until he finished eating two servings of arroz con pollo and shoved him into the small bathroom with some of Santiago’s too-large clothes to shower and change. When he emerged, she pointed imperiously to the pull-out sofa bed that she must have made while he was showering. “Sleep.” Alex complied, getting into bed. Maritza turned off the light and just before she left, she ran a hand softly through his damp hair. “Gracias, mijito. No mereces toda esta cagada. Que duermas bien.” She left. 

Alex’s thoughts drifted. Memories of the past few days—blue water, black forest, red blood—pulled at his consciousness, but their vivid hues and emotions were rendered hazy with exhaustion. Fatigue won out in the end. Alex slept.

———

The next afternoon, Alex found himself in Coconut Cove once more. It felt like so long ago since he had first stepped off the bus in the sleepy little town. He could see now small hints of Florida’s wilder side poking through the suburban facade that he had missed before; try as humans might to beat nature into submission, they could not manage it entirely. Alex couldn’t understand why they would ever want to.

It was Friday; his flight was scheduled for Saturday evening. It would be good to go home. He missed Jack and Tom and his messy room in Ian’s old house in Chelsea. Maritza and Alex had stopped by the research housing to gather his belongings and Maritza was picking up some extra clothes from Roy’s apartment for him and Mullet Fingers. Alex had also promised them to check on the owls. He would have done it even if nobody had asked. He had become fond of the odd little birds.

It was another blindingly sunny day. The week had been hot and dry, and the verdant lawns and trees now held a tinge of desiccated yellow. Alex knew that most of the owls would be wisely sheltering from the afternoon heat. Still, it didn’t hurt to check. He circled the lot, still vacant, still quiet except for the drone of nearby insects and amphibians. Alex brushed the trunk of the tree under which he’d sat those first two days; a brownish-green anole scuttled away from his hand. Having made a full circuit and seen no signs of avian life, Alex pulled the little bag of crickets out of his backpack that he and Maritza had purchased at a nearby PetCo. Like he had seen Mullet Fingers do that very first day, he carefully untwisted the twist-tie, stooped down, and upended the plastic bag at the edge of the fence, guiding the little insects towards the lot and the owls. 

Alex stayed in a crouch for the next few minutes, hoping that the incentive of a hopping green meal might lure one or two of the owls out of their burrows, but none appeared. He held his position until it became too cramped and uncomfortable to ignore—his body was still aching from the punishment of the previous days—and reluctantly stood. It seemed as though he would not see the owls after all. Alex winched as he stretched and shook his stiff legs until they stopped tingling. Maritza would be there any minute; it would not do to delay.

Alex almost missed the minute movement from the sun-baked asphalt. Almost. But not quite. He cautiously walked over and crouched on the sidewalk. There was nothing but a mess of tawny feathers; it looked like a pillow had exploded. Alex thought it was maybe two or three owls worth of debris. He felt sick and sad. Even here, right next to a piece of land that his friends had fought for tooth and nail to protect a little piece of Florida’s vanishing wildlife, people managed to be careless and destructive. 

Alex saw something twitch again. He inspected the messy site more closely. Amongst the feathers there appeared to be an intact bird after all. It was much smaller than the adults he had seen in the lot; it must be a baby. An orphan, judging by the debris surrounding it. The baby twitched feebly in the sun, one little wing clearly broken. Alex’s heart twisted; he pulled a spare t-shirt out of his backpack and gently lifted the little owl into his arms. It flapped clumsily and gave a pathetic little hoot. Alex held it gently. With his other hand, he sent Maritza a quick text. She would be there soon. She would know where to take an injured animal.

———

Maritza unsurprisingly sprang to action immediately. After checking the bird’s injuries again and showing Alex how to hold it properly and feed it droplets of water, she drove them to the nearest wildlife rehabilitation facility. That was where things started to go wrong. Alex showed the veterinarian the little bird, described the circumstances of its discovery as best he could, and the veterinarian brought them into a little examination room. The inspection was quick, but Alex’s stomach dropped when he saw the veterinarian’s pained expression.

“Normally we could handle this sort of thing,” he explained. “But we’ve had a recent influx of injured animals, some of which take more ecological priority over this one. We simply don’t have the room.”

“Are there any other facilities where we can take her?” Maritza asked.

“I’ll see what I can do. She won’t survive on her own like this, and with those injuries, she might never be able to recover enough to return to the wild. Unfortunately, we just don’t have the resources to help her.”

It was frustrating but not unworkable. This was just the first place they had stopped. Surely there would be someone else who could take care of her.

There was not. Alex felt his hope drain away as they called more facilities, Maritza and the apologetic veterinarian looking grimmer and grimmer. This was ridiculous. The state saw billions of dollars poured into its shitty theme parks every year. Did the politicians in charge really think that Universal Studios and Dumbo-shaped funnel cakes were the most valuable thing their state had to offer? Could they not take care of one tiny owl? 

Alex felt tears prick at his eyes for the first time in a long time as they heard more and more “nos.” Maybe he had become so desensitized to human suffering that the peril of the past two weeks barely registered, or maybe this additional tiny injustice tipped the scales firmly into “he could not handle it.” He did not know, and he did not want to think about it.

Eventually, Maritza drove them back to Miami, the owl dozing in Alex’s lap. He had not let it go since they had left the facility. The silence in the car was becoming unbearable. He could not take it any longer. “If she stays here, she’s going to die. I have to take her with me.”

Maritza did not take her eyes off the road. “And how do you think you’re going to manage that, nene?”

“Backpack,” said Alex defiantly. “I have a friend who’s… good with technology. He made this one. It can hide an owl from x-rays.”

“Okay… But you realize that this is a wild animal, not a pet? You can’t keep it. It wouldn’t be good or fair to either of you.”

“No.” Alex drooped. He perked up almost immediately. “But there are zoos!”

“You know you can’t just walk up to customer service and say ‘hey, can you add my friend here to one of your exhibits?’ It takes a lot more planning than that, to make sure the facilities are ready, that they’re compatible with any other animal they get stuck with, that they have experts to contact in case something goes wrong…”

“Yeah, I know. But this is the London Zoo! They have basically everything. And they have owls like this one. See?” He brandished his phone. Maritza glanced over momentarily and refocused on the road.

“Get that thing out of my face. Fine. I have a friend who does some consulting with them; I’ll see if she can help. No promises, but we’ll check, okay?”

That was good enough for Alex, for now. True to her word, at the next rest stop, Maritza called her contact in London. Who, despite it being very early or very late in London, answered on the second ring. “Who the hell is calling at three in the morning?” The voice who answered was female, her voice thick with sleep. Alex heard some muffled words that, based on the tone of their delivery, were some choice curses. Was it Japanese?

“Hello Dr. Miyamoto, this is Maritza Lobos.”

“Ah, Maritza!” The woman’s voice immediately brightened. “How are the manatees?”

“They’re doing very well, thank you. I’m sorry for calling you so late. It’s just, we’ve got a bit of an emergency.” Maritza quickly summarized the situation. “I know that this is an unorthodox request, but there is nowhere else for her to go. I don’t want to get anybody in trouble, but my friend is very passionate, and it would be worse to not ask at all.”

Dr. Miyamoto made a sound of agreement. “Hmm. It will take some pulling of strings, and maybe some errors in paperwork, but I think it can be done. It will take time though. A few days, maybe. Will your friend be able to care for her for that long?”

Alex spoke up then. “Yes. I’m on summer holiday still, and as long as you tell me what I need to do, I can do it.”

“Method of transportation? Home facilities?” Alex told her. “Hmm. Not the most sophisticated approach, but we can make do. Here’s what you need…”

The next afternoon, Alex just barely made the nonstop flight from Miami to London. If Santiago Lobos noticed anything amiss, he said nothing. Alex was in first class and the seat next to him was empty, but he couldn’t bring himself to relax until they took off the tarmac. When he was certain nobody was looking, he slowly opened his backpack a crack. The little owl was sleeping soundly. Maritza had carefully tranquilized her a few hours earlier following the detailed instructions sent by Dr. Miyamoto. Step one down. Now he would just need to make it through the next two days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title " _Otra Noche en Miami_ " means "Another Night in Miami" and is a reference to the Bad Bunny song of the same name.
> 
> Alex did in fact play the Tin Woodman in his school's production of the _Wizard of Oz_ (or at least, he does in this universe.)
> 
>  _Science_ and _Nature_ are two of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world. Maritza's research is a pretty big deal!
> 
>  _¿qué te pasó?_ means "what happened to you?"
> 
>  _Nos vemos ahorita_ means "we'll see each other soon."
> 
>  _hermanita_ means "little sister" (it isn't always used to denote relative age, the diminutive can also be used for affection, which it is in this case as Maritza and Santiago are twins and she is in fact a few minutes older.)
> 
>  _Alejo, te ves como un zombi. Necesitas dormir, mi amor._ means "Alex, you look like a zombie. You need to sleep, my love."
> 
>  _arroz con pollo_ is chicken and rice. There are many variations of this dish that can be found throughout Latin America, but it is generally always delicious.
> 
>  _No mereces toda esta cagada. Que duermas bien._ means "You don't deserve all this shit. Sleep well."
> 
> Is the scheme to get an owl into Alex's backpack contrived? Yes. But so are many AR plots!


	9. The Circle of Trust is Small but Explosive (if you believe Mrs. Jones)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And back to England, where we get to meet the stepsister Mullet Fingers referenced in Florida.

**_PRESENT DAY_ **

“Who,” repeated the fuzzy little owl. Now that its carrier was unzipped, it had stuck its head outside of Alex’s backpack and was swiveling its head back and forth, peering curiously around the room.

“Shhh, we’re home now, but we can’t wake Jack,” Alex whispered in what he hoped was a soothing tone for birds. She was still waking up from the sedation, and no doubt her tiny body was exhausted from trying to repair a broken wing, but she could manage some very loud screeches if she got too agitated.

Alex dug his phone out of his pocket. At the airport was the first time he had accessed it since leaving England; they had not allowed him time to retrieve his charger before sending him away, and he never used his personal device during missions anyway. The angry strip of red in the battery icon indicated that it was at 4% charge, so Alex plugged in the phone before opening it up and re-reading the meticulous notes he had been sent by Dr. Miyamoto. The supplies for two days of owl care were simple, though Alex himself would probably need another round of vaccinations by the end of it, on top of those he had received at Dr. Miyamoto’s insistence back in Miami. 

The first step was to clear the worst of the detritus from his desk (Alex had not gotten a chance to clean his room before being whisked away to the States, not that he put much effort into neatness anyway.) He grabbed an ashtray from a teetering stack on the floor. He didn’t smoke, but he had gotten into the habit of swiping them from every intelligence agency he set foot in (a teacup would do in a pinch.) The pile from MI6 was perilously close to toppling over. Jack had an artist friend who did glassblowing; Alex thought he might have them melted down into some hideous piece of modern art condemning government-sanctioned child abuse. 

Alex poured some bottled water into the first ashtray and took a second (liberated from an SVR building in Moscow) and dumped in some of the pellets Maritza had pressed into his hand before he passed through the security gate in Miami.

“Come on, then,” Alex said, coaxing the little bird onto his desk. The owl cautiously hopped out of his bag, one brown wing dragging along the table’s scratched wooden surface. It sniffed cautiously at the two bowls and began to lap at the water, making contented little hooting noises. When Alex was sure it was occupied, he hastily gathered some old clothes and a cracked plastic laundry basket gathering dust at the back of his closet. With the clothes, he made a soft little nest in the broken bin and tucked it under the desk, strategically adjusting his chair so that it was decently concealed from anyone looking through the doorway. Not that Alex expected Jack to come barging in his room. She had given up on bringing some semblance of order to his chaos long ago. But it did not hurt to be cautious. 

The bird, having finished eating and drinking, promptly waddled off of the edge of Alex’s desk and dropped into his hastily outstretched hands.

“None of that, Owlbert Einstein,” he muttered. He gently placed her in the laundry basket. She promptly began to burrow into one of his t-shirts. “Here’s your nest for now, we’ll get you to a proper home soon enough, just hang in there.”

Alex had not dared a nap on the flight home and was beginning to feel the effects of sleeplessness now. The circumstances were not precisely ideal, but the owl seemed content for now, and Jack would not be up for a few hours yet. Alex set an alarm and curled up on the bed with a yawn. He could squeeze a few hours in before he needed to do anything. Today, he would need to be alert…

———

Alex was in the mangroves, perched in a tree like a tropical monkey, gazing into a beautiful orange sunrise. An alligator was sunning itself on a rock, and a manatee was swimming in lazy circles below. Alex heard a voice from a long way off. He looked down. Why on earth was the manatee shouting at him? He was pretty sure he remembered reading something in school that said manatees couldn’t talk, but they clearly hadn’t met this one. She—for the voice definitely belonged to a woman—was also speaking with an accent that was an odd muddle between American and English. Shouldn’t it be American? Manatees were warm-water creatures, and it would be odd for one to venture across a chilly ocean and head north. Maybe it had gone to exchange school somewhere.

He also didn’t remember manatees having blue eyes or freckles. He blinked.

“Alex?” the voice repeated, sounding mildly exasperated. The freckled manatee resolved into a freckled human woman.

“Sabina?” Alex muttered, still fighting through the haze of sleep.

“Alex,” she repeated, more firmly this time. “Why is a feathery gerbil trying to eat your shoelaces?”

———

Sabina Pleasure rose from her crouched position several inches from Alex’s face to stand above his bed expectantly, gesturing to the owl which was indeed chewing on the lime-green shoelaces of Alex’s trainers.

“Sabina,” Alex said groggily. “What are you doing here?”

“You left the door open. I came in to save your footwear.”

“No, I mean what are you doing _here_? In the house?”

“That’s not an answer to my question, Al, but you’re still waking up so I’ll let it slide. I’m hoping to come back to England for school, so I’m here touring unis. Jack said I could stay with you. She also said you’d been shipped off to America to help with a drug bust and she didn’t know when you’d be back. She’s planning to mail a leaky barrel of sardines to CIA headquarters in Langley. That was my idea,” Sabina added proudly.

Alex laughed, which quickly turned into a cough. His throat was still desiccated from the long flight. Sabina pressed a glass of water into his hand— _nice of her_ , Alex thought, though he knew it would also facilitate the impending interrogation—and continued speaking between gulps.

“Well?” Sabina prompted. “You were going to tell me about the tiny bird going to town on your aglets?”

Alex finished the glass and set it on his end table. Talking felt much easier now. “A stowaway from Florida. It’s called a burrowing owl. I could’ve taken it with me or left it to die.” He recounted the highlights of the past two weeks as Sabina listened, rapt. Alex met her eyes when he was finished. “You mustn’t tell Jack, not yet, at least.”

Sabina looked at him doubtfully. “I wasn’t planning on snitching, but are you sure your room is the best place for a wild bird? I’m no ornithologist, but owls aren’t exactly known for being easy pets.”

“I am aware. I’m not going to keep her for long. My friend in Florida has a contact at the zoo here, and her contact said they can take it as soon as they do some paperwork. We just need to get through the next day or two.”

Sabina looked disappointed. “Only two days?” Alex nodded. She considered Alex again. “That might be a good thing, I suppose. You could rub off on her if she stays here too long. She’d end up blowing half the zoo up.”

“I maintain that anybody who got blown up on my watch had it coming. And you’re not exactly innocent yourself, Ms. Light-Crawley’s-Car-On-Fire-And-Blame-It-On-An-Escaped Housecat.”

Sabina raised her arms towards Alex dramatically. “Exactly my point. I would never have done that if I hadn’t met you!” Her mouth twisted in a mischievous smile. “And like you, I wholeheartedly believe that bastard deserved it.”

Alex grinned back. Not many people could roll with the punches quite like Sabina. She had not been roped into too many of MI6 or CIA shenanigans and shared Alex’s distrust and disdain for them, but she was always eager to help Alex, even when he didn’t ask for it. Like in the case of Crawley’s car. “Fair point, Sab. I think it’s too late for you, though. The sooner she gets away from us, the less likely it is that she gets into pyrotechnics.”

“I will never uncouple the association between cleaning products and explosives, thanks to you.” Sabina’s eyes fell on the owl for a moment, which had wandered back to Alex’s backpack, probably nosing around for some treats. “You may be Mr. Superspy, but even we will have a hard time hiding this on our own.”

“We?” Alex said.

Sabina flapped a hand. “Of course we, you dingbat. We’ve done stupider, more dangerous things before. Besides, she’s adorable. Does she have a name, by the way?”

“I’m working on that.”

“Hmm. Not a priority at the moment. I’ll think of something. Dr. Miyamoto sounds like she knows her stuff. Will she be able to help us?”

“A bit, but mostly on the tail end. She’s given me some pretty detailed care instructions, and I’m supposed to talk to her later about how to get the owl to the zoo. And there are a couple of other people who can give us a hand now, they just aren’t here yet.”

“Tom, of course.” Alex nodded. Sabina looked at Alex, brow furrowed. “No offense, but that’s basically it for your circle of trust. Who else did you have in mind?”

“My friends in Florida have been doing this sort of thing for years. One of them has a sister who just so happens to play football in London…”

———

Sabina and Alex sat on the floor of his bedroom. The still-unnamed owl was hooting quietly in Sabina’s lap when Alex placed his first phone call. Nobody picked up so he ended up leaving a voicemail. “Tom, mate, I’m back and I could use your hand with a project. No big deal, but I could use your help. Ring me when you regain consciousness.”

He then called the number that Roy had programmed into his phone two days earlier. This person picked up two rings later.

“Who is this?” barked an American-sounding woman, sounding somewhat out of breath. Fortunately, Alex had been warned that her greeting would be less than sunny this early in the morning.

“It’s Alex Rider, I think your brother told you I’d be reaching out? I’m calling about an owl, you see…”

Five minutes later and initial logistics were done, and the owl was settling in for another nap, just in time for Alex to hear Jack stumbling out of her room and downstairs for her morning coffee. Alex and Sabina slipped out of his room a moment later, making sure to close the door firmly.

“Jack, I’m home!” he called, bounding down the stairs after her. Half of Jack’s upper torso was wedged into the cupboard that stored the tea and coffee. 

“Oh… that’s nice,” she said vaguely as she rummaged around. She emerged a moment later, coffee in hand, and brushed her tangled red hair out of her eyes, blinking at Alex. “Alex. You’re home!” She threw her arms around his ribs in an enthusiastic hug. Her eyes fell to Sabina who had taken the initiative to fill up the teapot and set it on the stove to boil.

“Oh, yes, Sabina’s here, uni visits and all that, I said she could stay at ours for the week.” 

“I can see that,” Alex said, still grinning. It was good to be home!

“I wanted to tell you, but of course, I didn’t know how long you’d be and you didn’t have your phone.” Jack finally released Alex and went about making the coffee. When it was brewing, she turned back to Alex, inspecting him more carefully. “You’re back on time, for once. What happened? Are you hurt? Did something go wrong?”

“No, everything went well. Mostly. And I’m fine, for once! Not a scratch on me.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “That would be a first. Hang on—” she dove for her coffee, which had just finished pouring, shoved a second mug underneath the spigot, and took a deep sip. “Alright. Start from the beginning and tell me everything. I’ll make eggs.”

Jack was becoming more animated by the minute and had already managed to make a significant dent in her second cup of coffee by the time she started cracking eggs. Alex and Sabina got to work with tea, fruit, and toast. They settled around the kitchen table with plates of breakfast as Alex told the two women what had passed during his two weeks away. Jack was less aggravated than usual when she heard the details of Alex’s missions. It probably helped that the worst of post-mission injuries was a sunburn, which could be counted as a minor miracle.

They were finishing breakfast when the doorbell rang, followed by aggressive knocking from the front door.

“I’ll get it,” said Alex, hastily scrambling up from the table. The knocking carried on as he reached the front door. When he opened it, Tom nearly fell through.

“Oi, Alex! Give a man some warning! Also, there’s someone—“

The aforementioned “someone” swept through the doorway and turned to face Alex. Tom sputtered something about letting “random elbowy strangers” into the house and the other visitor, an athletic-looking woman, raised an eyebrow, leveling a stare at Tom that would have cowed many a braver SAS man or woman. Tom effectively silenced, she turned back to Alex.

“Beatrice?” asked Alex.

She nodded back at him and flashed a brilliant, toothy grin. “Alex! Nice to meet you. Thanks for keeping my incredibly dumb brother and his boyfriend alive last week.”

Tom looked incredibly confused. “Alex, who is this terrifying woman, and what is going on?” Beatrice did cut an imposing figure. She could have appeared next to the dictionary definition of “Amazonian,” broad-shouldered and as tall as Alex, with curly shoulder-length hair, a tan that rivaled that of Mullet Fingers, and bright brown eyes behind red-framed glasses. (The glasses did not, perhaps, increase her resemblance with the mythological warriors but they were definitely striking.)

“Hang on, I’ll explain in a moment. We need to get Sab first.”

Beatrice patted Tom’s shoulder consolingly. The boy looked positively alarmed. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to eat you.” She nodded to Alex. “Lead the way!”

Alex led them down the hallway to the kitchen, Tom trailing behind and warily observing Beatrice out of the corner of his eye. When he walked in, Jack and Sabina looked up.

“Hi, Tom!” Jack said cheerfully. Sabina gave him a little salute. “And who is this?” Jack asked. She sounded polite but guarded. Sabina had been correct when she said that Alex’s circle of trust was small. It was unusual for Alex to bring anybody home of his own free will, let alone a stranger.

Alex gestured to Beatrice who still smiling, rocking back and forth from heels to toes with her hands clasped behind her back. “Jack, Sab, this is my friend Beatrice. We were in the same charity football tournament a while back, she’s just popped in to say hello.” 

“Ah. Lovely to meet you, Beatrice.” Jack looked relieved that she did not have to deal with an MI6 lackey or assassin sent by some or another megalomaniac Alex had pissed off this early in the morning, though a bit confused.

“Same here, Ms. Starbright!”

“Just Jack.” Jack was smiling more openly now.

Beatrice nodded. “Jack it is!” She turned. “And you must be Sabina.” Beatrice gave the other girl a cheerful wave, and Sabina promptly choked on her tea. Spluttering, cheeks beet-red and eyes watery, she managed to emit a choked “hullo” before shaking her dark hair over her flaming face. Alex glanced between the two of them. Beatrice was certainly attractive, once you got past the fear that she might throw you out a window if you crossed her. And the fact that she played for Arsenal. (Alex had been very proud of himself for not gagging when he first heard that bit of news.)

Beatrice’s eyes had crinkled as though she might be about to laugh, but she just continued smiling. “It’s so nice to meet the two of you, you were all Alex talked about during the tourney! And you, of course, Tom,” she said when Tom looked like he might explode again. “I’ve got to get to training in an hour, but my shinguards are in the wash, and Alex said he’d let me borrow his for today so I decided to swing by. What would I do without him!” She gave Alex a cheeky wink. 

What indeed. She lied more smoothly and creatively than some of the operatives MI6 actually bothered to train.

“Could we borrow Sabina, actually?” Beatrice asked. "I just need some help choosing socks, and I know better than to trust Alex—”

Sabina nodded mutely, and after a second’s delay wherein everyone stared at her, she started. “Oh. Right. Yeah. Right on it.” And stumbled up the stairs after them.

“What is with you, Sab,” muttered Tom. Alex turned to hear the answer, raising an eyebrow.

Sabina glared at both of them. “Say anything else, and you will live to regret it.”

———

“So,” said Beatrice Leep. She was sitting on the end of Alex’s bed and seemed to have taken the dramatic effect her presence had on her new acquaintances in stride. “Let’s see her.”

Alex obliged, moving his bags aside and carefully removing the little laundry-bin nest. Beatrice inspected it carefully. “Looks good,” she said finally. “I only talked to Dr. Miyamoto for a sec, but it sounds like if you’ve managed this long, one more day won’t kill her. She’s a tough little girl.” Beatrice smiled affectionately at the little bird and gave it a gentle pat on the head. The flash of her bright white teeth abruptly reminded Alex of a detail from one of Roy’s stories from the days atop the _Molly Bell_. Apparently, Beatrice had once chomped a hole in Roy’s bicycle tire. Roy had never explained why, and Alex hadn’t asked.

“I have training in an hour, but I’ll be back right after that. The biggest issue is keeping her from wrecking your house. You laugh now,” she said, cutting off Alex who had been about to protest, “but trust me. It’s not pretty. You’ve heard my brother’s stories, even little critters pack a lot of destructive potential.”

“She’s right,” Tom said suddenly. “Remember that film course in Inverness I did in July? A barn owl got in one of the houses and wrecked _everything_.”

Beatrice nodded approvingly and Tom seemed surprised, but gave her a tentative smile. “Exactly,” she said. “Wild animals are great, but they’re still wild.”

Alex had to concede that she was right. “Okay. We’ll make sure to keep her in my room, which is a bit of a disaster anyway, until we have to move her.”

“Fabulous. We’ll also need to sneak her into the zoo, but that won’t be an issue until tomorrow and we have Dr. Miyamoto to help us with that.” 

“So we need to have a good way to keep her safe and entertained and not let her make a huge mess,” summarized Tom. “Straightforward enough.” 

“You say that now,” Beatrice said ruefully. “You’ve never had to deal with any animal my brother has touched. He has a gift for finding the nutty ones. You,” she turned to Sabina, who flushed a deep, brilliant red, “are probably more responsible than these morons if my brother and his boyfriend are anything to go by. I’ll give you my number. Text me if something goes wrong, okay? I’ll be at training but I’ll skip if it’s an emergency.” Sabina nodded mutely. She seemed to have forgotten how to speak. Alex found it highly amusing and was not stung in the least by Beatrice’s jab, which had been accompanied by a subtle wink that only he and Tom could see.

Sabina was still silent and frozen. Beatrice raised her eyebrows and looked pointedly toward her outstretched hand.

“Oh! Phone.” Sabina hastily reached for the mobile device, dropping it twice before she unlocked it and placed it in Beatrice’s hand. To her credit, Beatrice did not laugh.

“There you go.” She handed it back a moment later. “I’m off now but I’ll be around. Alex, come with me for a sec?”

Alex was curious about what Beatrice had to say, and also a bit scared of what would happen if he didn’t listen to her. He didn’t think she would hurt him, but he was rather attached to his 10-speed. Beatrice walked out to the front steps, closed the door behind them, and turned to face him. “They told me what you did last week. That took guts, especially for people you know nothing about in a place you don’t even live. Thank you. I know my brother was a wreck cause of Roy and probably didn’t get a chance to say it, but thank you. We owe you big-time, and I’m not talking about this. Anything you need, let me know. Though based on your bedroom, Arsenal tickets aren’t what you had in mind,” she smiled mischievously.

Alex winced. “I might be able to get over it for the women’s side, at least as long as you’re on it.”

“Good enough for me! I know Chelsea pride runs deep,” Beatrice said, nodding at Alex’s socks, which were blue and covered with lions. 

“And about the other thing, it wasn’t a big deal,” Alex went on. “I do stuff like that all the time. Too often, if you ask Jack. She’s probably right. It was good to do something I actually cared about with people I could stand because I wanted to, for once. Mullet Fingers and Roy are great. Although,” Alex added, “I was wondering about why Roy calls him Monito. What’s that nickname come from?”

Beatrice rolled her eyes. “It comes from the two of them being disgustingly sappy. Roy told you he’s Colombian?”

Alex nodded. “Your brother did.” 

“Yeah. In Colombian Spanish, mono can mean monkey, blonde, or cute, and Roy thinks my dumb brother is all three. And monito cause of course he needed to make it more cutesy.”

“Ah. Makes sense.” That was one mystery solved (Alex did not think she would be able to shed much light on the mysterious puma.) Beatrice was easy to get along with, despite her intimidating confidence and physique. Alex could see how she and the boys back in Florida had formed such a close-knit group. That, and their preternatural ability to find themselves in scrapes from which only Beatrice seemed able to extract them.

The door creaked open again and Sabina and Tom cautiously poked their heads out as Beatrice was bounding down the steps. She gave a backward wave and broke into a jog towards the tube.

“Is she gone?” Tom asked with trepidation. He sighed in relief when Alex nodded. “Mad, that one is. Absolutely terrifying. I really like her.”

Sabina was staring after Beatrice’s retreating figure. Tom snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Oh yes, absolutely,” she said hastily. “Mad fit. Those legs alone…” Alex started to snicker. “What?” She looked from Alex to Tom and back to Alex, and only then seemed to register that she had just spoken aloud. She groaned and gave Alex a tiny push. “Oh shut up, you.” The giggles broke into full-out howls and Sabina dropped her crimson face into her hands.

Sabina was saved from further torment by the shrill whistling of Alex’s cellphone from inside. The three raced upstairs, delicately stepped over Owlizabeth Bennet (Sabina’s idea) and Alex flung an arm towards his end table, flailing until he reached the offending device on his third or fourth attempt. Glancing at the Caller ID—though, with that ringtone, it could not be anybody else—he groaned and stabbed at the “answer” button a little harder than necessary, putting the call on speaker.

“Rider.” Tulip Jones, current Director of MI6, spoke with her usual crisp diction. That prim voice haunted many of Alex’s nightmares. Tom mimed vomiting. “You missed the debrief for your latest assignment. We need to meet. Two PM, the Royal and General.”

“Well, good morning to you too. Couldn’t this have waited a few hours? Or a few days? Maybe ask the Americans to share their notes with you.” Sabina stifled a giggle.

Alex almost thought he could hear Jones’s eyes close momentarily in exasperation. Sadly, she did not rise to the bait. “Two o’clock,” she repeated. Alex looked at Tom, who was urgently tapping his wrist, and gave him a thumbs-up.

“Can’t you at least tell me how long this is going to take?”

This time, Jones’s sigh was faintly audible. “Is there anything urgent we should know about? Perhaps something more important than national security and the safety of the free world?” Alex heard scratching. Sabina had been fishing around the debris from Alex’s desk and was now scribbling on a notepad. She held it up. It read _Living my bloody life without you wankers trying to fuck it up every other week. Also, “free world?” What a joke._ He snorted.

“Funny choice of wording isn’t it, Mrs. Jones? The whole ‘free world’ you’re prattling on about doesn’t seem to apply to me.”

“Alex, is there something more pressing on your schedule than avoiding an international incident? I do not recall Brookland announcing the debut of Sunday classes during the summer holidays.” 

“Well, you got me there. I am a teenager, after all, I couldn’t possibly have plans on a weekend. But to be fair, you’re being right cryptic bastards as usual so I think it’s reasonable for me to ask whether I should expect two hours of circular questions or two months in some Norwegian prison. I hear they’re quite nice,” he added. “If you do decide to throw me in prison, I’d put a vote in there, assuming I have a say in the matter. Not that precedent would suggest anything of the sort.”

“Rider, let me rephrase. Is there an event on your schedule that urgently needs doing today?” 

Tom held up his phone, waving an open app in front of Alex’s face

“Animal Crossing isn’t going to play itself,” Alex said to Jones.

“Rider, would it kill you to take your job more seriously?”

“It’s not exactly a job if he’s not getting paid, though, is it?” Sabina broke in.

“ _Rider—_ ”

“Yeah, and he hasn’t gotten killed yet, no thanks to you!” added Tom.

“Speakerphone? Really, Rider?” Jones sounded positively exasperated now.

“What? Do you perhaps feel… misled?”

“Tricked?” said Tom.

“Like someone withheld vital information from you?” added Sabina.

“Did we hurt your feelings, Mrs. Jones?” asked Tom in a voice so sweetly condescending it was sickening. Alex snorted, hastily (and ineffectively) covering it with a cough.

“Rider, do you know how much money has been spent on your missions?”

“I know about the zero pounds that have been added to my bank account if that’s what you mean. Mrs. Jones, Tom and Sabina have been more help to me on missions than you have,” said Alex. “It’s in the nation’s best interest that they are kept appraised of every unnecessary turn of the bureaucratic wheels in MI6.”

“Remind me how the loss of Mr. Crawley’s car benefited you, Rider.”

“That wasn’t me,” Sabina said promptly.

“Yassen Gregorovich did it,” added Alex.

“You were present for Mr. Gregorovich’s death, Alex, as were you, Ms. Pleasure. Please do not blame dead assassins for your own misdeeds.”

“Misdeeds for which you have no proof, Mrs. Jones,” replied Alex calmly.

“Besides, we have a theory,” said Sabina.

“More of a thought experiment,” Alex put in.

“We call it Schrödinger’s assassin,” explained Tom. “Maybe he’s dead—“

“Maybe he isn’t—“ Alex chimed in. “Though he probably is.”

“But it doesn’t matter because for our purposes if we can consider him both dead and alive or neither dead nor alive, he may or may not be to blame for all of these incidents that you try to saddle on us without a speck of proof. Like the cicada incident,” concluded Sabina.

There was silence at the other end of the line. The director of MI6 Operations appeared to be at a loss for words. Finally Mrs. Jones spoke. “Two, Rider.” There was a soft click. Sabina and Tom were bent over in silent, gasping laughter. Alex smiled, greatly cheered. If he was going to be dragged around by MI6, it would be kicking and screaming and chipping away at their resolve one obnoxious phone call, pun-filled debrief, or destroyed company car at a time. It was the little things in life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forewarned is forearmed, and to avoid nasty surprises, Alex has assigned MI6 its own ringtone, [the theme from _Twisted Nerve_ as whistled in _Kill Bill_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZwsK36BzcY). (The caller ID is "Wanker".)
> 
> Alex does not actually believe Yassen Gregorovich to be alive. He knows, however, that conspiracy theories about the assassin’s continued survival are incredibly irritating to Mrs. Jones and occasionally brings it up as he hopes that it will help drive her into an early retirement.


	10. Dear Alan, You’re a turd. Signed, Everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Here's an update. Not my best work, but I rewrote it about four times and I know myself, if I kept putting it off I'd never actually finish writing it. There'll probably be a gap for the final two chapters as well, because even though the plot/outline hasn't changed AT ALL, I've rewritten it several times already and it still isn't working the way I want it to. Oh well. Happy February, enjoy!

At five past two, Alex walked into the Royal and General Bank. He had not deliberately set out to be late, but he certainly hadn’t hurried when he realized he would be cutting it close. Was it wise to make MI6 and its substantial resources angry with him? Probably not, but they were not in the position to complain about punctuality. He had never forgotten how they’d made him wait a full day before waltzing into Point Blanc when he very well could have been vivisected. He still had nightmares.

The Royal and General had its usual arsenal of x-rays and thermal imaging, and Alex’s pettiness prevented him from bringing any other bag than his backpack from Smithers. One of the gadget man’s most endearing qualities was that he never got around to collecting the ingenious little inventions he sent off with Alex on missions. MI6’s security systems, which probably amounted to hundreds of millions of pounds when you factored in development costs, were no more effective than the airport x-ray machines when it came to deciphering the contents of Alex’s backpack. In this case, Alex didn’t even know what was inside. Just pens, probably; he hadn’t bothered to put anything in before he strolled out the door that morning. Who knew what contents the poor agents analyzing the security footage were dreaming up. Not his problem, they had signed up for it, while Alex had been coerced into working for this shit show of an agency, just one more injustice in the dumpster fire that was his life.

Alex was the only person in the elevator. He preferred it that way; no stupid small talk with irritatingly aggressive or unspeakably bland agents, and he could blast whatever music he wanted in the slow, creeping journey upwards. Today’s selection came courtesy of some creative genius, who, while probably under the influence of several drugs, had made an inspired medley of Tuvan throat singing and an Irish jig. It wasn’t too bad if you knew what to expect, which the aforementioned security agents certainly would not. Nor would they be able to avoid hearing it through the highly sensitive microphones placed in the elevator.

A ding, the swoosh of mechanical doors, and Alex walked out onto the floor, eight minutes late and with lively fiddle music and significant vocal fry heralding his arrival. To his disappointment, Mrs. Jones was standing outside the elevators waiting for him. To his delight, she looked displeased and visibly winced when he turned up the music.

“Oi, Tulip! Lovely afternoon isn’t it!” Alex bellowed cheerfully, despite the mere ten feet of distance between them. Everyone within earshot—which was to say, most of the floor—turned to look at them and quickly, awkwardly looked away again when they recognized that the new arrival was their illegal teenage agent, likely there because he had been threatened once again by the very same agency that was supposed to protect people like him. Alex was gratified to see Mrs. Jones close her eyes in resignation. It was always good to remind her that if Alex was planning to be difficult, no amount of cajoling, bribery, or threats would entice him to behave maturely, and they really could not afford to lose the ticking time bomb of scandal that was their conscripted child agent.

“Mr. Rider. Thank you for coming in. Will you step into my office for a moment, and then we’ll begin the debrief.” This was more of a statement than a question and Alex followed Mrs. Jones down the hallway and to her office.

Things had briefly warmed between Alex and the MI6 Director of Operations after his help with the Nightshade case. It had been personal for Mrs. Jones; her two children, who had disappeared a decade before, had been kidnapped and brainwashed by the organization. Alex’s role in the group’s downfall, while not entirely free of manipulation, had been more voluntary than most of his other missions. Alex had hoped that this meant the end of the coercive tactics that MI6 had employed in the past to secure his assistance in foiling the latest megalomaniac’s plans for world domination. They sent a sniper to shoot at his school for God’s sake! Who did that?

MI6 had stayed away for a little while. Alex was able to sit a full, uninterrupted term for once. He joined the football team again, he got his grades up, he became re-acquainted with the classmates who had not completely written him off as a druggie or delinquent. 

He allowed himself to believe that things had changed, and though he would never wholeheartedly trust the organization, he thought that maybe, maybe this meant they had begun to give an inkling of consideration to his autonomy, such as it was. Perhaps they saw him as more than just an expendable tool that they could throw at problems until he aged out or was irreparably damaged or killed (his money had been on the latter.)

A few months later when MI6 called Alex in again, they did not threaten to deport Jack or ruin Alex’s educational or job prospects. Instead, they decided to play to Alex’s emotions. They spelled out the direness of the situation, explained why sending in one of their trained agents was so very impossible, and assured Alex again and again that he would be completely safe. That it was different this time. And it had worked. And they had lied.

Alex emerged from that mission with broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a deep stab wound to his thigh that was now thick silver scar tissue, severe hypothermia from hours of exposure (literally—what was the obsession Alex’s adversaries had with stripping him naked?) and a concussion. This was a depressingly familiar aftermath of an Alex Rider mission. At least they had let him stay in the hospital this time instead of sending him to a sadist’s compound in Egypt or shooting him into outer space.

MI6 hadn't even been the ones to find him shivering in a ditch in some remote dirt track in Siberia. They hadn't even looked. That honor had been left to the SVR, who had apparently kept an eye out for little Alex Rider since the events at Murmansk. He'd saved them a lot of embarrassment, if not total annihilation. They were grateful. Alex remembered little of it beyond warm arms and a voice that was hazily familiar telling him that he was safe now, and very brave, and that everything would be fine. They were gone by the time Alex regained enough of his mental faculties to ask about it. The vague recognition was probably a byproduct of the injury- and cold-induced delirium, but still. He would have liked to thank whoever it was for actually giving a shit.

It was at the hospital was when things started to take a real turn, starting with the wizened Dr. Pawlowski in charge of Alex’s treatment who, after one look at MI6’s orders to tape or stitch the worst of his wounds and discharge him immediately (to the care of the Royal and General, naturally), tore them neatly in half and threw them in the bin filled with bloody gauze and used nitrile gloves. Instead, he called in Dr. Sule, a psychiatrist, and Dr. Nadimi, a neurologist. Dr. Pawlowski ordered a series of MRIs of Alex’s brain and body, and when one of the MI6 underlings showed up to see whether the agency’s instructions were being followed, said underling was met by three furious physicians shouting about repeated traumatic brain injuries, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), and permanent physical and psychological damage. The flustered agent called his superior, who called Mrs. Jones, at whom the doctors yelled some more.

Some of this had happened before. Most physicians who came across Alex (of whom, admittedly, there had been very few in the past couple of years) were horrified by his injuries and continued physical stressors, but it had only taken one or two calls from MI6 to cow them into silence. But through some miracle, MI6 had, somehow, managed to assign Alex to the one person in St. Dominic's who they could not intimidate. Dr. Pawlowski was too old and too firmly established in the global medical community to care about MI6’s veiled and outright threats. Under the harsh lights that irritated his pounding head and blurry vision, Alex had been able to see the edge of a faded series of numbers tattooed onto the man’s arm and felt he understood an inkling of the man's vehement and aggressive opposition to coverups of government-sanctioned abuse. 

As Alex began to recover (and it felt less like someone was taking a sledgehammer to his brain when anyone tried to talk to him) he learned a bit more. Dr. Nadimi was the older man’s protege, a brilliant young scientist who had fled the revolution in Iran as a child. (Her father also happened to be the former head of Iranian intelligence services.) She had graduated from one of the best universities in the United States at nineteen at the top of her class and shortly after completed a combined M.D./Ph.D. at another one of America’s top institutions. She had appeared in TIME magazine, was credited with hundreds of papers and thousands of references in prominent scientific journals, and had presented three of the top twenty most popular TED Talks. Dr. Sule was at the center of a well-publicized scandal about the attempted coverup of the long-term effects of repeated head trauma in sports. He had weathered the full weight of the vindictive American league behind the coverup (though it turned out Americans were too attached to the sport to care very much about whether the league was punished for allowing the destruction of the very athletes upon whose backs they made billions) and emerged a hero for many. The trio who had seized control of Alex’s medical care with no thought to MI6’s orders were simply too accomplished, respected, and tough for MI6 to erase.

They tried to keep the worst of the arguments from Alex, but they could not be faulted for underestimating his predilection for eavesdropping. Alex, not wanting to be kept in the dark about his own health but also fascinated by the diatribe—he did not know how long it had been since anybody had stood up to the head of one of MI6’s main divisions in so forceful a way—heard the whole thing. Despite the pain in his head and chest and thigh, he felt that the physical damage just might have been worth overhearing the thorough dressing-down, complete with robust evidence from reliable peer-reviewed sources. (Ben Daniels, one of the few MI6 visitors who Alex had willingly allowed inside his hospital room, had quietly informed him that the neurologist had dropped off over two thousand pages worth of scientific articles and research studies on Mrs. Jones’s desk when Jones had summoned her to “discuss Alex’s treatment” before turning on her heel and walking out.)

In the end, it was a learning experience for Mrs. Jones (about the value of keeping Alex healthy, worry that another set of Alex’s injuries would find themselves being presented as a case study at an international medical conference, this time with MI6 de-identified as the organization responsible for sending a child into a combat zone, or fear of encountering Dr. Nadimi again, he did not know) and from then on she made sure he got more thorough physical exams and adequate rest time between operations. Alex was more careful with his head, too. The graphic descriptions of brain atrophy had been convincing; hearing the words “if he keeps this up, he’ll have a brain like a block of Swiss cheese before he’s twenty-three!” was both illuminating and terrifying.

The circumstances may have improved a little for Alex, but the tension was still there, and probably always would be. Mrs. Jones moved to the other side of the desk and gestured at the chair opposite. “Take a seat,” she said, and stiffly sat down. Alex moved a little more gracefully; he had Malagosto and now Mullet Fingers to thank for that.

Mrs. Jones stared at him. He stared right back. He understood the waiting game, and she was the one with a schedule to keep. Mrs. Jones probably knew what he was thinking, but she still had to press on. “Alex, it has come to our attention that there were some… confusing details surrounding the mission in Miami. You might not know anything, but we need to ensure that nothing… sensitive has been compromised.”

“Like my identity?”

“Like your identity,” Mrs. Jones confirmed.

“Respectfully, if any terrorist organization, criminal agency, or well-connected billionaire with nutty ideas about world destruction doesn’t have some idea who I am by now, I would be shocked. None of us are very good at keeping all this,” he gestured to himself, “covert. I shot the Prime Minister of the U.K. on live television, remember? Also, my face was blasted over every news station as Europe’s most wanted that one time.”

Mrs. Jones pursed her lips. “Be that as it may, we’re still worried. Ramos was well-connected in the Americas and he had some powerful allies in Europe. We just have some questions, and then we’ll send you on your way.”

“Until the next catastrophe you or the CIA cooks up?”

Jones sighed. “Alex—“

“Or ASIS! I almost forgot. Is there anyone else you forgot to tell me about who knew my parents and has no problem with killing me?”

Mrs. Jones ignored this. “I’ll inform the investigative team—“

“I get a team now? That’s exciting!”

“—that you’re here. I’ll be back to get you in a moment. For now, stay here.”

“As they’re allegedly coming for me, can you make sure they’re planning on being here today and not in two days’ time?”

The pained “ _Rider_ ” came through gritted teeth as Jones rose and made her way resolutely to the door.

Alex mock-saluted her as she left the room. “It’s not as if there isn’t precedent!” he shouted down the hallway.

Alex looked around the office idly. No ashtrays (he would not have been surprised to hear that he had depleted MI6’s supply), but there was that fancy-looking crystal bowl with peppermints. Maybe he could branch out. It was completely full at the moment; Alex suspected that Mrs. Jones had refilled it in anticipation of their meeting that morning. Should he take the candies with him? It was a little too obvious, though, and he’d rather today’s acts of sabotage be discovered at unexpected and inconvenient moments rather than the moment Mrs. Jones walked back into the room. 

He knew there was no surveillance in the office, thanks to another gadget that Alex had conveniently failed to return (and about which Smithers conveniently neglected to ask), a bright green phone case with a pattern of bunnies frolicking in a garden that could map any room Alex happened to find himself with the roots of the garden plot. Bugs and cameras were indicated by carrots and turnips. Potatoes were explosives. There were no root vegetables on Alex’s phone case today. There hadn’t been any in Mrs. Jones’s office for a while, not since Alex managed to shower the entire room with several liters of Diet Pepsi some months before. The drawers and electronics had been inundated, and the hidden camera and microphone had gotten an especially large dousing, to which (as Smithers had been fascinated to discover) they were not impervious. This had also solved the perennial beverage problem; Alex hadn’t seen another Pepsi product on the entire floor since the incident.

Alex decided to search his backpack for inspiration. He knew he must have left something in there, and it was too heavy to just be pencils. He propped the backpack on his lap. As he started to unzip it, he was struck with the sudden feeling—the sixth sense that develops from years of having the sort of luck that sends you walking into hotel rooms with the expectation that there’s a murderer hiding in the wardrobe—that something was very, very wrong.

The sleeping ball of feathers at the bottom of his bag, nestled in the old blue jersey of Alex’s, confirmed his suspicions. _Of fucking course._ Alex was mentally slapping himself. Why oh why had he not checked his bag? If she was here, she wouldn’t have touched the breakfast Alex had left her before leaving the house. She would be waking up soon, and she would be hungry, and she would go searching for something to eat, in an unfamiliar building with large people and loud noises and strange smells. She would be terrified.

Thoughts of sabotage had flown from Alex’s mind. He knew that sudden, enthusiastic cooperation would look incredibly suspicious to Mrs. Jones and any agent who knew of his reputation, but he saw no other way to get himself and his little charge out of there quickly. For her, Alex would behave.

Alex heard footsteps and recognized them as belonging to the MI6 Director of Operations, returning to retrieve him for the meeting. He hastily re-zipped his backpack, making sure to leave a little gap so the bird could breathe. It might traumatize her to wake up in the bag with no way out, but hopefully, the gap would help her stay calm until he returned.

Mrs. Jones walked into the office just as Alex was zipping up the backpack. She didn’t exactly look suspicious, but Alex thought he saw her eye twitch. He stood, moving to take the backpack with him.

“No need for that, Rider,” said Mrs. Jones crisply. _If you’re planning to blow something up during a meeting again, you may as well have some of your own things ruined_ , Alex interpreted. Well. Protesting might make her search the bag, and she’d probably think the owl was some sort of high-tech camera from a rival agency or vector for biological warfare. Time for Plan B.

Alex tucked the bag carefully under her desk, pocketed his phone, and followed Mrs. Jones out of the office. As they walked down the hallway to a conference room, Alex covertly sent a text to Tom: _**sos owl in backpack need extraction from r &g asap!!!**_ Then he pocketed his phone.

He took a deep breath. It would be fine. The owl was tiny, her wing had been broken a few days before, she had just endured a Trans-Atlantic flight, and she was zipped into Alex’s backpack. It wasn’t as though she was going to escape, Alex reasoned, much less make her presence known to the rest of the office. These debriefs always took too long. All he needed to do now was keep anyone from taking a second look at his backpack until Tom got there.

———

“At least she has a name now,” Jack said an hour later. She and Alex were walking away from the Royal and General Bank at top speed, spitting out feathers and coffee creamer. Alex plucked a sugar packet from his hair and flicked it into a nearby trash bin.

“How do you mean?”

“Sweetheart, if you call her anything but Hootdini after this I’ll disown you.”

Alex snorted.

“I’m not going to get into it now, but seriously, Alex? Did you really think I wouldn’t notice? ‘Charity football tournament,’ I may not be a spy but I’ve lived with you for almost ten years now, and that excuse was pathetic. And if she managed to do all that to a highly-secure government intelligence agency office, imagine what she’d do at home!”

“Fine. But in my defense, the vet said she’d probably spend most of the next two days _asleep_.”

“Yeah, cause things always work out how they’re supposed to when you’re around Alex.”

Alex whistled. “Low blow, Jack.”

Jack was unmoved. “Face it, Alex, when you’re around everything in a ten-mile radius tends towards maximum chaos.”

“How on earth—“

“Or space, Alex, don’t forget space—“

“—could you say that, Jack? I’m wounded.” They reached a crosswalk just as the “WALK” sign turned red. They came to a halt and Jack looked pointedly down to the backpack cradled protectively in Alex’s arms and up again.

Alex sighed. “Touché.”

Jack smirked but ruffled his hair affectionately. “Oh damn, hold still.” Alex obliged. She plucked out a wooden coffee stirrer and inspected it. “Huh.” She ran her gaze over her and Alex’s coffee-soaked, sooty shirts. “We can’t get in a cab like this,” she said ruefully.

“Probably not,” Alex acknowledged. His eyes fell to the powdered sugar (the coffee station at the Royal & General always had a box of doughnuts—or had, anyway) on Jack’s cheek and mouth. That might lead to some erroneous conclusions. “The tube might be out as well.”

“That fucking sucks.”

Alex shrugged. The light turned again and they crossed, still moving at top speed. Alex glanced over to her. “How’d you get here so fast?”

“Not all of us fuck around for a year like a certain intelligence agency when it comes to helping a friend in need. I took a cab.”

“Wow, thanks, Jack. That was incredibly illuminating. I mean how did you find out and get here before Tom did?”

“Ah, that. He told me right after you texted him. He had to,” she added, heading off Alex’s comment about misplaced trust and disloyal friends, “He’s been banned from the Royal & General ever since the cicadas, remember? Sabina too. They’ve had to replace Crawley’s car a few times too many to let her in.”

“I thought they might be joking about that. It’s not like either of _them_ have outright assaulted an agent.”

“Nope,” said Jack matter-of-factly. “Maybe if they had, they wouldn't still be banned. Has that asshole’s nose healed, by the way?”

“Not as well as your hand.” Jack looked greatly cheered by this.

Somewhere behind them came the insistent beep from a car. Alex ignored it at first, but it came again, and then the driver seemed to have decided to lean on the horn as they pulled up beside Alex and Jack on the sidewalk. Alex braced himself. It could be a heckler. He and Jack did look a sight. Was it MI6? Had they decided that his behavior was suspicious enough to warrant pursuit? Or was it one of the many people who wanted nothing more than to see Alex dead?

“Do you guys want a ride, or are you just going to stand there?” Alex turned to face the car and a grinning Beatrice Leep, who had rolled down the window and was amusedly taking in Alex and Jack’s bedraggled appearances.

“Yes please,” Jack said. “Tom told me everything,” she added to Alex. “That boy is surprisingly bad at keeping secrets.”

Alex would need to talk to Tom about that. He got into the car and a moment later Beatrice had pulled away from the curb and they were off towards Chelsea and a much-needed change of clothes.

———

When Beatrice Leep pulled up to Alex’s home, Tom and Sabina were already there. Tom was sitting on the steps, absentmindedly shredding what appeared to be one of Brookland’s sex education pamphlets (complete with mortifying cartoons) and Sabina was pacing nervously. When Tom caught sight of Alex in Beatrice’s back seat, he sprang to his feet. He and Sabina both looked immensely relieved. Tom flung open the door and Alex slid out of the car, gingerly holding his Smithers-gifted backpack.

There was a shocked, frozen moment during which Tom and Sabina took in Alex and Jack’s disheveled appearances. “What happened to you?” Tom finally asked, eyes wide. Alex’s mind flew rapidly to the Royal and General and the ancient, blue-haired Mrs. Slocombe wielding the fire extinguisher, in front of MI6’s hideous coffee service (which in all likelihood was still smoking.) It would reek of coffee for weeks.

“Well…”

———

_“Holy shit.” Just outside the conference room was a small beverage station. The scene was one of chaos. The pots had both been tipped over, and hot coffee and water were pouring over the hallway freely. Creamer spattered the wall, which was also coated in sugar packets, some of which appeared to have exploded on impact. Stirrers were strewn from one end of the hallway to the other, and Alex could see a few stuck in the ceiling tiles. The air was filled with fluttering napkins, some of which had been shredded by tiny claws and beak._

_The source of the shriek appeared to be an elderly secretary, the blue-haired Mrs. Slocombe, who was clutching a fire extinguisher and frantically spraying the wall opposite the coffee station. This was the wall of plaques for former department heads. The sound of shattering glass had come from one of the fallen plaques, which was covered in the yellowish spray of the fire extinguisher, though it was still smoking. Still smoking, because it appeared as though somebody had managed to set half the wall on fire. Doors up and down the hallway slammed open, and agents were poking their heads out and gawking. Alex needed to find the owl, and quick._

_Where could she be? With the loud, large agents milling about, she would probably be looking for somewhere safe to hide. There weren’t any burrows, or anything remotely burrow-like, nearby. Despite the remarkable strength and pyrotechnic skill displayed by the overturned coffee urn and flaming wall of directors, Alex doubted that she could open a heavy door on her own. She might go searching for something familiar, but she hadn’t come hopping into the conference room, so she wasn’t looking for Alex._

_Alex caught a flash of red, then heard an American voice a moment later._

_“I’M LOOKING FOR ALEX!” bellowed the owner of the voice. Alex smiled. Good old Jack. The agents milling around the hallway simultaneously turned to the smoldering wallpaper._

_“Excuse you, I didn’t set this particular fire,” Alex muttered._

_“THE SILLY BOY TOOK MY BACKPACK AND NOW HE HAS MY TEXTBOOKS. I HAVE AN EXAM TOMORROW, I NEED TO STUDY!”_

_“Isn’t it the summer holidays?” one of the employees called out. He shrank under the glacial glare of Jack Starbright. “Sorry,” he muttered and shuffled away._

_The crowd was looking around now. Where WAS Alex? He could reliably be found at the center of chaos. Unsurprisingly, Jack spotted him first._

_“THERE YOU ARE, ALEX!” She shoved her way through the crowd. Crowley tripped backward over an overturned wastebasket in his haste to get out of her way and landed in a pile of styrofoam and artificial sweetener._

_“Erm, yeah! Hi Jack! Sorry for taking your books. They ran off without my meaning them to.” Alex looked at the backpack clutched in Jack’s arms. “It seems like you’ve found them?” he said hopefully._

_“Yes, Alex, thankfully I was able to retrieve my wayward textbooks and no harm has come to them.” Alex felt a flood of relief._

_“Oh shit.”_

_The words came from someone in the crowd behind them. Alex whipped around just in time to see the ancient silver urn explode in a shower of lukewarm decaf. And because nobody in their right mind would put themselves through MI6’s dreadful coffee if they didn’t get at least a minimal buzz, it was full. Very full._

_If anything could be said of the agents at the Royal & General, it was that they were always on high alert for projectile beverages when Alex Rider was around. Everybody dove for cover as coffee splashed over the corridor. It looked like someone had committed a particularly gruesome murder on a golem, and now its muddy entrails were spattered across the wall. There was a moment of silence, but for the sound of dripping decaf. A moment later, there was a crack and a shower of plaster, and the lid to the tureen—which had embedded itself in the ceiling in the initial eruption—came clattering loudly down on top of Mrs. Jones’ head._

_Jones slowly turned on her heel to face Alex. Her face was contorted with poorly-suppressed rage. “Rider…” He held his hands up and set his face into what he hoped was an innocent expression._

_“It wasn’t me!”_

_“A likely story.”_

_“I swear!”_

_“So I won’t find the remains of some incendiary device or one of Smiters’ robots repurposed to terrorize this floor when I look through your bag?”_

_“No!” (Or at least, he hoped not.)_

_Jones wordlessly marched back to her office. When she stepped in, she stopped short. Through the open door, Alex could see quite clearly. What had been a pristine space half an hour before was now a symphony of torn paperwork and feathers. The peppermint candies were scattered everywhere. But the pièce de résistance was Mrs. Jones’s wastebasket, in which the commemorative plaque for Alan Blunt that had been commissioned after his forcible retirement, now merrily aflame. It was clear that the bird had defecated enthusiastically all over its shiny surface._

_Jones looked shocked. “Rider—what in God’s name is going on here?”_

_Alex cleared his throat. “It appears as though we have a rogue bird, ma’am.”_

_Jones glared at him. “Thank you for that insight, Rider. What I mean is, how? And where is it now?” Her voice was dripping acid._

_“I saw some news story about pigeons flying into a building’s ventilation system. In the end, there was a colony of, like eight thousand of them. Probably what happened here.”_

_“An infestation of pigeons, Rider? Really?”_

_“Yes, and I’m terribly allergic, so I should probably go.”_

_“Allergic?” Jones looked perplexed now. “Why is that the first I’m hearing of this?”_

_“You didn’t give me regular physical exams for almost the first two years I worked for you, it’s not like you’ve kept track now, is it? But I really should go.” He gave a theatrical wheeze. “It would be a shame to go into anaphylaxis now, what with the world in constant danger and my being the only one to stand between humanity and total annihilation and all.” Without waiting for an answer, Alex pushed past Jones and speed-walked toward the elevators, where Jack stood waiting with the backpack._

_They were the only people in the elevator and Alex allowed his mind to wander to just how quickly the plan had gone to shit. They’d need to get rid of the owl and quick unless they wanted her to be confiscated as evidence. Ugh. He wouldn’t put that past Jones, either, just to be vindictive. As long as SCORPIA didn’t somehow resurrect itself like a particularly stubborn zombie to fuck up the mission. He wouldn’t put it past them, though… Good God, that particular plot in Alex’s life had grown tired…_

———

Tom looked at Alex with wide eyes. He seemed unable to speak; neither did Sabina (Beatrice looked unfazed, but then again, she was more accustomed to this type of avian shenanigans.)

“So in conclusion, we need to get her to the zoo tonight before ‘6 comes busting down my door,” Alex prompted.

“I see,” Tom replied faintly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's mention of head trauma and CTE in here. It's a personal gripe I have with action movies in general but also the general treatment of Alex by '6 in the series. Repeated head traumas, especially ones that knock you out, have well-documented long-term degenerative effects that are irreversible. Any physician worth their salt would see that, though I have no doubt that '6 et al. have threatened them into silence. So. I came up with a group of professionals too well-established and who'd already dealt with a lot of BS government coercion in their lives to be intimidated by '6. I have no doubt they'd rip 'em a new one. They are inspired by some real-life scientists who grew up in adverse circumstances to make incredible contributions to the medical sciences. Did this end up turning into a bit of a personal rant (including some pointed digs at the NFL)? Yes. But I also wrote this story 100% for my enjoyment so if I want to yell at MI6 for not taking repeated concussions seriously, then gosh darn it, I will! Also, shoutout to the take-no-shit members of the medical profession!
> 
> There is a shoutout here to the _Are You Being Served?_ but I don't think anyone has seen that besides me, either.


End file.
